Marks and Mics
by Totally-Out-Of-It
Summary: Hale siblings Derek and Laura have been hired to run security for Stiles Stilinski's music tour. Business as usual, except someone is trying really hard to prove they're incapable and hurt Stiles. Derek finds himself curious about Stiles' bitter attitude and a strange illness that plagues the singer. And on top of that, Derek's soulmate remains elusive. Mentions of self-harm later.
1. Chapter 1

Zero.

Derek Hale sighed, checking his wrist for the fourth time in twenty minutes. The number glowing just under his skin did not change. It didn't blink or fizzle or wiggle. It was solid and steady.

Across the room, his sister rolled her eyes and glanced at her own wrist, only she was looking at a watch like a normal person, like Derek usually would be doing. They'd been in this room for almost an hour, and while there were two comfortable couches and a very tiny kitchen set up, they had been standing the whole time. They were waiting for their clients to meet with them, but a meeting or something must have run late because the Hale siblings weren't used to waiting this long.

On a normal day, Derek would be annoyed down to his bones at being made to wait. Business clients were supposed to be professional and prompt, not an hour behind schedule. An hour behind schedule could mean disaster or an emergency, and it was literally the Hale family business to stop disaster and emergency.

But today, Derek was distracted. Truth be told, he'd been distracted for a week, but it was no better today than any of the previous days. He glanced down at his wrist again, staring at the number.

"Derek, if you don't stop staring at your numbers, you'll burn them into your skin permanently," his sister warned.

"Good. Then they won't disappear and leave me guessing," Derek answered back. "Anyway I remember when your numbers zeroed out and you basically walked around shoving your wrist in front of every new person you met... not that I'm judging."

"Bite me, Derek," she growled.

"When and where, Laura?" he growled back. "I'm allowed to be a little nervous."

Every child was born with the numbers. Scientists had been researching them for as long as humans had the ability to care about the strange countdowns on their wrists. It had to do with the aura-sphere, an invisible but very real stream of energy surrounding the planet. Science had proven decades ago that all life on the planet contained traces of the aura-sphere, and the numbers on each person's wrist were caused by a high concentration of that energy.

"Not today, you aren't. Not now. We're meeting our clients any minute and I will not have you checking your wrist every five seconds like a love sick teenager or a horny old man. We're professionals." Laura pushed off from where she was leaning against the wall and straightened the shirt on her pant suit. Her long, dark hair was tied up so masterfully in an up-do that it appeared as though she only had enough for a neat bun. "We can freak out about your lack of time later."

"I'd kind of like to freak out about it never, but since you brought it up, we are about to meet at least twelve new people and-" Derek started but Laura shushed him and the door to the room opened.

Into the waiting room walked a curly haired woman with tan skin. Her black hair was tied back in a messy ponytail and her colorful shirt looked wrinkled, but it could have just been the pattern design. Behind her was a younger man with the same tan skin as the woman but his dark hair was cut too close to tell if it was curly or not. Laura gave Derek a look that meant she was thinking exactly what he was. They were related.

"Laura and Derek Hale," the woman greeted with a tired smile. "I'm Melissa McCall. Your mother and I spoke on the phone. Oh- that sounds kind of informal. Sorry. Your boss and I spoke on the phone. Better?"

Laura laughed. "Don't worry about it, Ms. McCall. We get it all the time. Family business. Just have to get used to it."

"Oh good. Well anyway, I'm pretty sure I swore your mother to secrecy about who you're escorting tonight, so as Tour Manager, let me be the first to welcome you to the 'Just My Style' Tour team," Melissa said, bowing slightly. "We are so thankful to have you with us."

"Just-" Laura's jaw dropped. "Wow, I'm not supposed to care because it's my job, but we're guarding a Stilinski? Someone give me a glass of water. I may need to go on a run." She had started breathing quickly and Derek tossed her a water bottle from the table beside him, which she caught almost without looking. After taking a few gulps, she sighed and looked sheepish. "I'm so sorry. I just-"

"Yeah forgive her," Derek interrupted. "The Stilinskis are just the only singers she has any interest in whatsoever. Separate or together. Mom probably should have warned her." He looked pointedly at his sister. "So unprofessional," he scolded. In response, she almost chucked the bottle back at him, but then she decided to drink the water instead.

Instead of glaring at their radically unprofessional reactions, Melissa was chuckling. "Oh, no worries. Talia told me all about it. I thought 'why not?' and requested you as soon as I heard. Not every day you get to meet your idols, right? And don't worry. Stiles isn't one of those self-obsessed stars. He's just... well he's a lot like a teenager."

"That's because he is one," Laura said, and she and Melissa shared some laughter and smiles before the forgotten occupant in the room cleared his throat and Melissa jumped.

"Oh, right! Sorry! Laura, Derek, this is my son, Scott. He's my assistant manager for Stiles. He'll be the liaison between you and most of the crew." She stepped back to let them all shake hands and nodded at Scott afterwards like she was complimenting his ability to do so. "And on a more serious note, this first show is sort of a trial run. The Hales are a very highly recommended security firm, but the Argents heard we were hiring you and they're offering to do the tour for half the price just to kick you guys out. Honestly, I'd rather use your family, but you know... you gotta impress more than just me tonight."

"No problem, Ms. McCall," Laura said, capping the bottle. "You've never had a better crew than the Hale family."

"That's what I like to hear."

It looked like Melissa was about to say something more, but then someone crashed into the wall outside and there was a short cry of pain. Without missing a beat, Scott darted out into the hall, as though he were the security guard and not Derek or Laura. He was barely gone a second when he called out, "Mom!"

"Excuse me a second," Melissa said, but her face had fallen into severe concern and neither Hale could ignore that. Though her words had suggested they stay put, their instincts drove them to follow her quickly out into the hall.

Scott was kneeling by a figure on the floor, but he backed up as soon as his mother got near. Laura did her best to cover a gasp. There, leaning against the wall and panting in pain, was Stiles Stilinski. His brown hair was a mess, as though he'd pulled at it and run his fingers through it multiple times, and his already pale skin was paler. His brow was sweaty and he seemed unable to hold any air in his lungs. When Melissa gently touched his wrist, he whined and pulled away from her.

"Why are you out here if it's this bad?" the manager asked quietly, evidently trying to keep the Hales from overhearing too much, but Stiles was too close to them for them not to hear.

"S-Sorry. I just-..." Stiles grit his teeth and grabbed his right forearm tightly, head falling back against the wall. "I needed- It's worse than-"

"Scott, get him back to his room," Melissa ordered, pushing herself up. "I'm calling Yukimura. She'll meet you there."

"I'm on it," Scott said confidently, but when he tried to get Stiles to his feet, the singer just hissed and fell back down. The mother-son team tried together, but Stiles' legs were unwilling to cooperate.

Pressing his lips together, Derek stepped forward and pulled Stiles to his feet. Stiles complained with a cry of pain, but Derek didn't give him time to fall again. He scooped Stiles up in his arms, not surprised to find the younger man light enough to carry. The two managers gasped, but Stiles was too distracted to care much. He peeked out through squinted eyes to see who was strong enough to lift him, but then he just squeezed his eyes shut and concentrated on breathing.

"Show me the way," Derek ordered to Scott, who took a half second to look affronted before pointing down the hall and taking off as fast as his legs would take him without running.

Laura stayed behind with Melissa when they left, and Derek could imagine why. Stiles looked awful – paler than usual and sickly. His face couldn't have shown more pain if he had a gunshot wound in his stomach. Laura really admired Stiles Stilinski. There was no way she would be able to handle herself around him in this state. Even Derek had been shocked into paralysis at first. But now he just wanted to get Stiles to this Yukimura person so they could help Stiles with whatever was wrong with him.

And just what _was_ wrong with him?

Scott rounded a corner and let out a breath of relief. "Kira," he greeted.

A young Japanese woman waited just outside of a door marked with Stiles' name, rocking nervously back and forth on her heels. When she saw Scott, her face relaxed, and when she saw Stiles, her eyes grew serious. She opened the door for them and ushered the group inside.

"Hurry up," she said as Derek carefully maneuvered through the door, wincing at every moan and short cry of pain coming from Stiles. The girl half slammed the door shut behind them. "Oops. Sorry."

"Kira," Scott gently scolded and she shook herself.

"Right. Not important. Set him down on the sofa." She dug in her bag while Derek did as told. Then he stepped back and watched her force a pill big enough to choke a horse down Stiles' throat.

Stiles forced it past his gag reflex and then pressed his lips tightly together in a sour expression. Derek could only imagine how awful something that chalky looking must taste, and he wondered again what was wrong with Stiles. He'd never seen anyone act like they'd been mortally wounded without actually having the wound. In his job, he'd seen a lot of crazy things, but definitely never something like this.

After a few excruciating minutes, Stiles calmed. His vice grip on his forearm slackened and fell away, his shaking limbs stilled, and his pained expression calmed. His breath still came in tired panting, however. Slowly, his eyes opened and he looked up at a worried Kira.

"Thanks," he grunted and even smiled at her. Kira smiled back and then knelt by him to give him a quick kiss on the forehead.

"Next time just call me," she scolded. "Don't just wander off."

"Sorry. You're right. Sorry." Whatever medication they'd given Stiles was draining him pretty quick. His open eyes were already drooping and his lips barely parted to let out words.

"You can pay me back with some coffee. Take a nap now and my father will stop by to check on you later." Kira stood and sighed as she gave him a disapproving stare.

Within seconds of agreeing, Stiles was evidently asleep. His breathing had evened out and his head dropped carelessly to the side on the arm of the couch. Derek watched the steady rise and fall of Stiles' chest for what felt like not nearly long enough before Scott and Kira said goodbye to each other and then Scott was dragging Derek from the room.

Once in the hall with the door securely closed behind them and several feet away, Scott turned and faced Derek. "You can't tell anyone what just happened."

"I don't even know what happened," Derek pointed out. "What's wrong with him?"

"If I say it's above your pay grade, will you drop it?" Scott asked hopefully. Derek just gave him an intense look that he knew communicated every version of 'no' possible, and Scott sighed. "Look, he doesn't want other people to know, so I'm not going to tell you. It's not usually a problem, so you won't have to worry about it to do your job right. The Yukimuras take care of him. Not you. So... drop it, alright?"

"Fine," Derek agreed, but he didn't plan to drop it at all. "But if it starts to interfere with my ability to do my job, I expect to be fully informed."

"That's-... logical," Scott said after a short pause. "Fine, alright. If it starts to be a problem, I'll tell you what you need to know. But nothing more, deal?"

"Deal," Derek agreed and they shook on it.

Derek would figure out what was going on, sooner or later. A condition like that one had to be serious enough to be documented somewhere. He would just-

Except he should just let it go. Scott had a point. Stiles having some kind of medical condition wasn't relevant to Derek's job as long as it wasn't going to make Stiles pass out in front of fans or something, and according to Scott it wouldn't. He should ignore it like he would for any other client.

Casting one last look back at Stiles' room, Derek nodded and headed to find his sister.

* * *

><p>It wasn't until roughly the thirteen century that people realized exactly <em>how<em> the countdown worked.

What it counted down too was rather well known already, although nothing official had been recorded.

Soul mates.

Every person on the planet had one true soul mate. This did not mean you couldn't date and find love on your own time. Many people got married to their not-soul mates and had happy families, but there was always the stress of the true soul mate lingering in the background. Because those numbers on every single person's wrist counted down the number of months until you met your soul mate.

It was odd science, and some biologists were still trying to figure out if the numbers could be honed to be more accurate, but as it stood there was up to a month of difference between when your numbers zeroed out and when you met your soul mate. It all linked back to the aura-sphere, of course. The energy in each person's body matched the energy in another person's body, originating from the same strand of parent energy in the aura-sphere. Your numbers were a countdown to when your energies were properly matured and aligned.

Some people met their soul mates the day after their numbers zeroed out. Some people ended up meeting theirs a full thirty days after. A lot of factors influenced the length of time – physical distance from each other, emotional state, geographical location, some even argued that sexuality played a role. But the point was that after your wrist said zero, you had a thirty day countdown. It was a guarantee, proven by centuries of human history.

And that was why Derek Hale couldn't stop looking at the small glowing zero on his wrist. He was within his month, so everyone he met was filled with potential.

Finding your soul mate was a tricky business, and the whole month countdown thing was a serious design flaw, to be quite honest. Why couldn't it be days? Or hours? Or minutes? That would clear up so much confusion. But no. It was months.

And Derek's wrist had been zeroed out for ten days.

Was it possible he'd already met his soul mate and just hadn't noticed? He had bumped into a lot of new people... but that was sort of his job. He was a body guard – a security guard. He basically told people to move a lot and tried not to be too personable.

When people said you'd "meet" your soul mate within thirty days, did they mean meet as in introduced and everything or meet as in "I told them they couldn't wait outside the bus for the band to come out and they walked away glaring at me"? What a shitty first impression. Was that what happened? What if-

"What about this?" Laura asked, reminding Derek that he was working.

As his eyes came back into focus, he realized he'd been inadvertently glaring at a temp worker that was mopping the floor. The poor guy looked wrecked as he kept glancing nervously over at Derek. When Derek looked away, the guy relaxed, and Derek tried to figure out what his sister was talking about.

Her finger was aimed at a junction point in the hallways. Normally, this wouldn't be anything interesting, but just inside the hall that led backstage was an alcove. There was nothing in the cut out of the wall, but it was shadowed, and it would only be worse at night during concerts. While guards and ushers moved people along the adjoining hall, someone could take advantage of the chaos and slip into the backstage hall by hiding in the alcove.

"Noted," Derek said, marking it down on the notepad he carried. "We'll stand a guard at the corner specifically so no one slips by. Now we should go into the main hall. I think we need to consider posting someone in the balcony. There's a window on the left side, and I think someone could easily get to it from the outside if they had a tall enough ladder to get them started."

"Wow. Are we guarding him from assassins now?" Laura asked with a teasing grin. "So what if someone sneaks in the top window?"

Shaking his head, Derek slipped his notepad into his jacket pocket. "We're being tested, remember? If we don't impress them, we lose the job to the Argents. Beyond that, imagine Mom's face if we couldn't even properly protect one teeny bopper."

Agitated didn't begin to describe the reaction he got from his sister. "Teeny-? Listen here, caveman. Just because you don't listen to the radio or anything made after 1980, doesn't mean Stiles is a teeny bopper. He's a seriously talented singer. Stop smirking before I rip the lips right off your face."

"Such a threat," Derek taunted.

Before he could continue their banter, however, a young woman raced over to the siblings, her eyes wide and fixated on Derek. Big blue eyes glanced desperately between Derek's hazel eyes and his wrist again and again before she clapped her hands together.

"Hi, my name is Emily. What's your name?" She asked quickly.

After a short pause, he answered, "Derek."

"Great to meet you," Emily said, still speaking quickly. Without asking permission, she snatched up Derek's wrist and showed off the glowing zeros to the ceiling. Before Derek could do more than grunt in disapproval, she pressed her own wrist over his and took in a sharp breath.

Derek didn't make any noises because he didn't feel anything. No tingling. No sparks. Nothing. It only took a short moment to discover Emily had gasped in anticipation and not out of any physical reaction either, because her gleaming smile dropped instantly into a frown.

"Dang it," she muttered, releasing Derek's arm. He pulled it back quickly and rubbed it against his side.

"What the hell was that?" Laura asked. Emily's lips parted to answer, but Laura held up a finger to silence her. "No. Let me stop you there. The answer is inappropriate. Ms., I don't know your job within the arena, but I'm going to have to request you give me the name of your supervisor and then step outside."

"Wh-What?" And now Emily looked clammy. "N-No! Please, I'm just-"

"Desperate. I know you think it was harmless, but it's our job to limit random variables like over-excited workers from the roster." Laura was so professional and cold that Derek was almost surprised, but he'd seen her get this way before over equally small events that ended up being really good calls.

"No, I need this job. I'm sorry!" Emily squealed, and the color of her skin reminded Derek too intensely of Stiles in the hallway.

Before Laura could continue to scold and dismiss the girl, Derek stepped between them slightly. "Let this one go, Laura," he said and stared intently into her eyes.

For a moment, they had a staring contest, a silent battle of wills, but in the end it was Laura who finally caved. Her lips pouted and then she groaned unhappily.

"Fine," she said. Emily looked so relieved she may pass out… until Laura turned on her once more. This time when Laura spoke it was with a much gentler tone. "Understand what would happen if you, or someone like you, ran in the middle of a crowd and did that to Stiles. I won't be dissuaded next time. Do you understand?"

"I understand." And Emily actually bowed to Laura. "I'm so sorry."

"Stop apologizing. Zeroing out always messes with people's hormones. Just get back to work and try to keep it together." Laura waved the girl off, and Emily wasted no time in hurrying back the way she'd come.

They watched the girl until she was out of sight and then Laura turned to face Derek instead. He chose not to look at her, though. Past where Emily had disappeared, the sunlight was turning everyone and everything into silhouettes. Vaguely he wondered what he might have done if he'd noticed Emily first, walking by with those glowing zeroes on her wrist. Derek had no idea what gender his soul mate was, only that he was supposed to meet them soon. Would he have been tempted to call her over and do the same thing?

"You too. Get your shit together," Laura grunted when she realized Derek wouldn't be indulging a second staring contest. Instead, she reached up to tap her bun and check it wasn't coming undone. "God, was I that bad when I zeroed? You better find your match soon or I'll have to start guarding you too."

"Well that would be something," Derek conceded. "Or maybe I'll just start wearing company wrist bands."

A laugh started in Laura's throat, but before she could comment, they heard something clatter and clang all over the floor behind them. Spinning around, they saw a cluster of expanding barricades had been knocked over – which was a feat considering they were pretty much designed to stay upright.

"Oh man, no one tell Scott I just did that. Better yet, don't tell anyone."

It was Stiles, hovering over the rolling pillars like he was trying to give them an air hug. His arms flailed slightly as he regained his normal footing and then he smiled sheepishly. Narrowing his eyes, Derek walked over and helped the singer stand all the barricades back up. Laura did too, but she was having trouble taking her eyes off Stiles.

"What are you doing?" Derek asked, and he meant 'out of bed' but Stiles didn't look ill in the slightest now. In fact, he looked in perfect health.

"Guess Ms. McCall didn't warn you. I'm a spaz. You're the new security leads, right? Sorry – you'll be protecting me from myself more than anything else," Stiles said, but he didn't actually sound sorry. When everything was standing again, Stiles stretched his arms to the ceiling and grinned. "There. Nothing happened."

He was dressed in jeans and a plain white shirt with a blue rim collar. If he bumped into Derek on the street, Derek probably wouldn't name him as a twenty-year-old chart-topping singer. But the whole civilian get up looked good on him regardless.

Oh damn. At this rate, Derek would turn into Laura. He closed his eyes for a second and banished all ideas of admiring Stiles from his mind.

"Oh, so hey." Stiles turned then and extended his hand to Laura. "I'm Stiles Stilinski."

He was acting like the episode in the hall had never happened. His smile was beaming. After shaking Laura's hand, he offered his to Derek, and his grip was strong. Even looking straight at Derek, he didn't make any notion that he recognized Derek as the one who'd carried him to his room.

"Derek Hale," Derek said automatically when their hands touched and felt his breath go tight.

"Nice to meet you." Stiles broke their handshake halfway and fist bumped Derek before pulling away entirely. He pointed at Derek's arm and gave an impressed look. "Zeroed, huh?"

"What?" Derek looked down and then felt silly for doing so. "Yeah. So?

"Good luck with that, buddy." Stiles put one hand on his hip and waved the other in motion to all of Derek. "I hear that can be troublesome. I mean, you've got the looks, so no issues there, but you gotta work on that serial killer stare. Seriously, we just met. Did I do something wrong already?" He paused, looking up as he thought, and then he grinned. "Well besides the barriers."

But Derek wasn't listening to the analysis anymore. His forehead knit together when his eyes landed on Stiles' wrists. General curiosity had drawn Derek's eye at the mention of his own zero, and he really shouldn't be surprised, but he still was.

Both of Stiles's wrists were bound in white cloth from the base of his hand to three quarters up his forearm. As if that wasn't enough, he wore a red wristband on his right arm and a black one on his left. Under Derek's scrutiny, he subconsciously rubbed his fingers over the red one.

"Uh, sour puss?" Stiles tried again and Derek jerked his eyes back to look at Stiles' face. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Laura giving him an agitated look.

"Thanks," Derek grunted. "I'll work on that. In the meantime, maybe I'll even find time to guard you."

Lips parted, eyes narrowed, arms out, Stiles was both the picture of disbelieving shock innocence. Derek wished the awkward expression would at least make Stiles look less appealing, but apparently today was not his day for wishes.

"Okay, okay." Stiles was shaking his head, but at least he was smiling while he did it. "Your brother's kind of an ass, you know?" And now his smile was on Laura. She looked embarrassed, and Derek felt embarrassed… not over his actions, but over his jealousy that Stiles wanted to talk to Laura instead.

"Oh, trust me. I know," Laura said and smacked Derek in the shoulder.

"Ow," he complained, but neither other person paid him any mind.

"Sorry," Laura said, but it was at Stiles. "I promise your shows will never be safer than under our watch. We're fully dedicated to supporting you on this tour if you give us the chance."

At that, Stiles shrugged, but he was still smiling. In fact, his incredulous look at Derek had been the only time the smile had left his face. "Well canvassing like police is a good sign. But the show tonight is the real test, right?" He took a step backwards and winked at Laura. "I wanted to officially meet you, but now I gotta go get ready. I'll see you guys later." He pointed at Derek's wrist. "You're gonna need that luck," he said, and then he was jogging away down the hall.

Derek's hand instinctively covered the numbers on his wrist as he glowered at Stiles' back. But he didn't get much time to think about how horrible that first introduction had gone because Laura was there to scold him out loud.

"Oh my god, you're such an embarrassment," she groaned and smacked his arm again. "Is it too late to give you up for adoption?"

* * *

><p>Preview Chapter 2:<p>

The crowd cheered as the next song started up, it was slower than the last one, and Stiles chuckled. He bounced his head. Then the guitar hummed into life, and Stiles' shoulders were going. He raised his head and leaned into the mic.

Panic clenched in his stomach and his face must have look shocked because Stiles kept singing, but his face looked confused.

Stiles grabbed Derek by the shoulder to stop him from leaving. "You're acting like the building's gonna blow up. Oh my god! Is the building gonna blow up?"

"I'm just- Well, I think this was a great first run aaaand I'll definitely count saving his life in your favor when Stiles and I discuss your contract," Ms. McCall said, obviously trying to keep the situation calm and normal.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: The songs Stiles sings this chapter are "Let's See How Far We've Come" and "Push" by Matchbox Twenty.

* * *

><p>Chapter 2<p>

"Hello? Hello? Hello?"

The automated voice echoed over the crowd and they roared with life. Derek stood just off stage, sizing up anyone who might jump the barricade.

"Hello? Hello? Hello?" the voice said again, and this time the crowd shouted it simultaneously.

On stage, Stiles had his head down in front of the mic, but Derek could see his grin.

Then the music started. Heavy drums. Stiles bounced his head. Then the guitar hummed into life, and Stiles' shoulders were going. He raised his head and leaned into the mic.

"I'm wakin' up at the start of the end of the world, but it's feeling just like every other mornin' before. Now I wonder what my life is gonna mean if it's gone."

Derek glanced at his watch. The concert was half over. He couldn't decide if he wanted to get the job or not for the full tour. On one hand, great business and he loved his job. On the other hand, he and Stiles hadn't exactly gotten off to a great start.

Glancing at his wrist, Derek was tempted to grab a jacket despite the hot temperatures this close to the lights on stage. Light or no light, though, he could see the zeros.

Someone's numbers were a joke sometimes, sure. People talked about it. There were entire shows dedicated to the numbers – whether fake dramas, reality tv where a bunch of zeros competed for one specific zero, science or health shows. They were a part of life, so of course people talked about them. But outside of bad reality TV? Saying something like that about a zero was not only insensitive, it was invasive. Stiles was barely out of being a teenager, but he should know better.

"I think it turned ten o'clock but I don't really know, and I can't remember carin' for an hour or so. Started cryin' and I couldn't stop myself. I started runnin', but there's nowhere to run to."

Everyone with zero was in a hurry to find their match, and statistically the only way someone wouldn't find their match would be if their match died that month from unnatural causes. To suggest Derek needed luck to find or keep his match was absurd and rude. To suggest he might not find his match? Who did Stiles think he was? Just because he was famous and probably met a dozen potentials every day-

"I believe the world is burning to the ground! Oh well. I guess we're gonna find out. Let's see how far we've come! Let's see how far we've come! Well I believe it all is coming to an end! Oh well. I guess we're gonna pretend. Let's see how far we've come! Let's see how far we've come!"

The coverings on Stiles' wrists. How would he ever know when he met the right person? Did he take them off ever? That morning when they saw him in the hall… he's been wearing the wristbands but not the wrappings. How many months did Stiles have left? He met so many people. He must be close to zero by now.

But it would be rude to ask. Inexcusable to forcibly find out.

The song ended with a surge in the crowd and Derek tensed. He shouldn't be thinking about this here. He was doing a job. He was protecting Stiles. He was making sure his men on the stage were doing their jobs while Laura managed the floor ops. So far, his earpiece was quiet. No major incidents… except for the one overly drunk guy in the back, but that had been taken care of.

"Thank you," Stiles said, breathless, into the mic. He touched his own ear piece and picked up a towel from the stage with his other hand. The sweat was visible on his face and neck even from Derek's distance, and he wiped it away for the time being. "You're a fantastic first audience. I love you guys!"

The crowd cheered as the next song started up, it was slower than the last one, and Stiles chuckled. Derek wasn't familiar with the song coming on, but Stiles found him in his spot just out of the public's view and smirked.

"She said I don't know if I've ever been good enough. I'm a little bit rusty, and I think my head is caving in." Stiles looked back at the audience while he sang and gripped the mic in its stand. "And I don't know if I've ever been really loved by a hand that's touched me, and I feel like something's gonna give. And I'm a little bit angry. Well, this ain't over, no not here, not while I still need you around."

Derek frowned. It sounded like a love song… but it wasn't? It was a sour song. There were even some sour notes, but Stiles didn't seem to notice.

"You don't owe me. We might change. Yeah, yeah we just might feel good." And then Stiles' eyes were back to staring off-stage at Derek, head bent so it wasn't so obvious. "I wanna push you around, well I will, well I will. I wanna push you down, well I will, well I will."

Narrowing his eyes, Derek focused not on the words but on the sour notes. They didn't sound like any instrument Derek knew of. In fact, they sounded like straight metal.

Panic clenched in his stomach and his face must have look shocked because Stiles kept singing, but his face looked confused. Derek looked away a second later, stared up at the rigging with the lights. Were they moving?

Something small tumbled down and hit the ground with a sound too soft to hear over the music, but it was in Stiles' view, and the singer trailed off with his song to look at it. It didn't take the band long to notice and then the music died away too.

The sour notes didn't stop, though, and now Derek could hear them clearly. It was the creaking of metal. Someone in the audience screamed and Derek ran out on stage just as the light above Stiles detached and fell from the rigging.

"Holy-," was all Stiles got out before Derek plowed into him, and they tumbled five feet to Stiles' left.

The light collided with a booming crash, and now the whole audience was shrieking. Pushing himself to his knees, Derek looked out into the crowd and saw Laura and her men herding the people out the doors. Good.

"Get up in the catwalk!" Derek ordered on the radio. "Lights don't fall by themselves."

Under him on the stage, Stiles groaned and shoved a hand into Derek's stomach. "Shit," he said, finishing his previous statement.

"Are you alright?" Derek asked, moving off and snatching Stiles' wrist to pull to his feet.

"I'm fine. What the hell?" When Stiles regained his footing, he looked over where the mic stand had been crushed by the light. "Oh my god."

"Come on. We need to get you out of the area," Derek said and pulled Stiles away from the wreckage. He didn't release Stiles' arm until they were all the way back in Stiles' room.

* * *

><p>Although Stiles looked a little worse for wear, Derek didn't stay with him. He escorted the singer to his room and checked every possible hiding place inside. The room was neat – barely anything had been taken out of bags and most of it had already been repacked for their exit that night – so he was able to scan for dangers rather quickly.<p>

"Stay here. I'll be back after we clear the building," he ordered, heading back out. Pushing his walkie, he called for someone to come watch Stiles' door. "Jordan's going to come keep an eye on you," he said after he got an answer. "He'll check on you when he gets here, but then he's going to stay outside."

"Are you serious? That is just-That is the worst idea-," Stiles stammered out and grabbed Derek by the shoulder to stop him from leaving. "You're acting like the building's gonna blow up. Oh my God! Is the building gonna blow up?"

"I don't know." Derek grunted and pulled Stiles' hand off.

"And Scott and Mom?" Stiles asked, his fingers twitching like he wanted to grab Derek again.

"I'm sure there's a detail on them. I'll call to check in a minute, but I need you to stay here." Derek tried to impress the seriousness of his request by giving Stiles the most intense stare he could manage. "I can't go check everything if I think you're running around somewhere trying to play hero. I need you safe. Understand?"

"Understand?" Stiles asked, and his voice seemed half-hysteric.

Derek raised a finger and pointed it at the singer, an inch away from poking him in the nose. "Stay here while we check things out. Do. Not. Go. Anywhere."

And then he left before Stiles could get hold of him again. Jordan was there in seconds, and then Derek hurried off to check the building. Generally speaking, protocol demanded they evacuate Stiles and the team entirely, but since Derek was relatively positive this was an attack and not a coincidence, he didn't want to risk letting Stiles wander around.

"Is Stiles safe?" Laura asked over the radio.

"Jordan's got him. He's good. The McCalls?" Derek asked back.

"On the bus. It's been checked. All clear," Laura reported.

"And the stage? Find anything? Anyone?"

The theater was cleared of guests by the time he got back out there and multiple voices rang back to him on the radio to clarify the areas that had been checked for saboteurs. The catwalk, the hallways backstage, the immediate backstage, all closets, and the lobby were clear. So far it sounded as if their wannabe assassin had long since fled, but Derek wanted to be sure.

They searched for the better part of an hour before they decided the building was safe. No assassins in hiding. No mysterious packages left behind. The only sign of anything was the odd scratches by the lock for the balcony window.

"Laura, balcony window," Derek called over the radio.

By the time she got up to him, Derek had his phone out and had taken several pictures of the damage. "What the hell?" she asked and bent down to get a closer look.

"Appears that someone pried it open from the outside, taking a few chunks of the paint with them." Derek sent the photos to his mother and then slid his phone into his pocket.

For a second, Laura was silent, and then she sighed. "You just sent those to Mom, didn't you?" she asked.

"Yeah. So?"

"Man, I was really hoping to do this without her help," Laura said and stood back up. Pushing her hair over her shoulder, she surveyed the area around the window and then crossed her arms. "Well at least it was a quick in and out deal. And if they keep us, we'll be sure to put details on every possible entrance, no matter how out of reach."

Derek tried to give her a disbelieving look, eyebrows raised and head tilted down, but she wasn't looking at him. In fact, she purposely spun the long way around to make her exit just to avoid seeing his face. Fine, so Derek couldn't brag right now, but he'd get her later for it. There was no denying her pride must be hurt after Derek pointed out this window as a safety issue and she chose to ignore it. It was her call, but Derek wasn't gonna be a jerk about it and rub it in her face… much.

At least this time the oversight hadn't resulted in someone losing their life.

The first thing they did after clearing the building was head to the tour bus. The man standing watch out front waved them down upon arrival and assured them that no one had attempted to come near and that the bus had also been checked and cleared of damages or suspicious items.

Inside the bus, Scott and his mother were close together, but Scott jumped up as soon as they came into view up the stairs.

"Stiles?" he asked.

"Safe with a guard. We were about to go grab him. But we wanted to debrief you first," Laura said, stopping Scott from pushing past her. "The light was tampered with. This wasn't just an accident, Ms. McCall. Someone targeted Stiles tonight."

"I thought you did a sweep of the building before the show started," Melissa said, standing as well, hands on her hips and posture distressed.

"We did. That's what worries us. If you keep our services, we fully intend to double the staff for all remaining shows. An incident won't happen again," the older Hale promised.

In front of her, Scott was bouncing anxiously. Derek knit his brow, wondering about the jitters in the guy who usually seemed so calm.

"We think they got in through the upper windows," Derek explained. "They were locked when the show began, but someone must have broken in during the opening acts. There were scratch marks by the lock. Mr. McCall, are you alright?"

"No. Stress makes it worse," Scott whined and motioned to the door. "I need to get Stiles."

"Makes what worse?" Laura asked, adopting the inherited Hale crease in her forehead.

But Derek could picture it – Stiles pale and sweaty and acting like he'd been shot. He locked eyes with Scott and then gently moved Laura out of the path. Scott's face was five times relieved as he nodded to Derek and then hurried off the bus. Almost immediately, Melissa rubbed her hands together and cleared her throat.

"I'm just- Well, I think this was a great first run aaaand I'll definitely count saving his life in your favor when Stiles and I discuss your contract," she said, obviously trying to keep the situation calm and normal.

"Thank you," Laura said, and Derek turned and left. He could hear her call after him and then subsequently apologize to Ms. McCall about his behavior, and he really wished she'd stop doing that, but at that moment he didn't have time to scold her.

Stress made it worse? Did Scott mean Stiles' condition? Had Derek accidentally left Stiles somewhere with a medical condition flaring up? Damn it. Now they definitely wouldn't get the job. Save his life just to leave him in pain?

Scott got to the room a minute before Derek, but Jordan was just conceding to letting him pass when Derek rounded the corner. Usually the rule was not to let anyone in until Derek or Laura said so, but Jordan probably recognized Scott from the mini-orientation that'd had earlier, so Derek wouldn't hold it against him. When he saw Derek, he shrugged. Stiles must not have made much of a fuss in the last hour if his guard was that calm.

The door opened and Stiles leaned on the doorframe, upper forearm in a death grip.

"Next time, I'll drop a stage light on you," he said, staring over Scott's shoulder at Derek.

"Oh he's fine," Derek grunted. "He's still sarcastic."

"We'll see how sarcastic it is when you're squished to death," Stiles shot back.

Scott put on hand on Stiles' shoulder and drew away the singer's attention before Derek could make a comeback. The two young men stared intently at each other for a long moment before Scott murmured, "Be honest. How bad is it?"

Stiles pressed his lips together, but didn't get a chance to answer. Kira Yukimura came trotting down the hall, messenger bag on her shoulder. Her boots didn't grip the tile floor, but she still managed to slide into position by Stiles as though she'd planned it.

"Wh-Whoa. Sorry. Um, here." And she pulled a medicine case from the bag. "Dad thought you, uh… might need this." But while she was handing the pills to Stiles, her eyes were on Scott.

"Thanks, Kira. But you don't need to use me as an excuse to come see Scott," Stiles said, popping the case open. While Kira and Scott flubbed for an answer, Stiles just smirked and dry-swallowed a much smaller pill than last time. Then he motioned to Derek with the case. "Say – were you worried about me?"

"No," Derek shot back a bit too fast.

"That's right," Stiles said, and though he was smiling, Derek was sure there was a hidden threat there. "Cause there's nothing to worry about, alright? I'm safe and healthy as a horse."

A dying horse, Derek thought, but kept his mouth shut. Why was Stiles so determined that no one know he was ill? What the hell was wrong with him?

* * *

><p>The tour bus carted them all back to a hotel for the night, and they posted a man outside of Stiles' room for extra safety. Between the two of them, Derek and Laura weren't sure if they'd have a job in the morning, so sleep was little rough. On the one hand, Derek had saved Stiles from being crushed. On the other, someone had slipped in undetected and tried to kill him. Great work. Really stellar.<p>

The Argents would probably have a party when they heard the news.

"The Argents will never let us live this down!" a sour voice shouted over the speaker of Laura's phone for all to hear. "How could you let this happen?!"

Derek winced and tried to glare at the same time, despite the person being unable to see him. Laura gave him an apologetic look and then pressed her lips together.

"Now, now, Peter. Calm yourself. The Argents have had worse, and they know it," their mother's calming voice spoke, instantly easing some of the tense out of both siblings' backs. "The important thing is that Derek saved Stiles. That will count for more in the long run, I'm sure of it."

"Talia, how can you say that? We've been fired for less!" Peter continued, and Derek could just see him pacing and throwing his arms dramatically like the metrosexual drama queen he was.

"You've been fired for less," Talia corrected, and Laura had to cover her mouth to block out her laugh. "Derek and Laura can handle this. And I spoke with the manager. She seems very agreeable. I have no doubt that they can all find a way to work together."

"You're too easy on them," Peter growled and then they heard a distant door slamming shut.

After a moment of silence, mostly caused by the source of most of the noise no longer being present, Laura decided to speak. "You really think we can still salvage things?"

"Darling, I believe you two can do anything. I would not have sent you there if I didn't." There was a lightness to her voice, as though she could see their souls even across a phone call.

No one fully believed in psychics, although plenty of people claimed to be one. Everyone knew about the aura-sphere and it was common knowledge that the aura-sphere effected everyone's lives, but to be psychic? That was ridiculous. Unless you were Talia Hale. The woman never claimed abilities or powers, but she had skills… magical or not. Their mother could read people with uncanny accuracy and was considered wise even by people many years older than her. Even now, so far away from her, Derek could feel the charge in her deep breathing, could tell she knew something beyond explanation.

"I think you two should get some sleep," Talia finally said. "The morning will bring good news. Don't worry yourselves. You've done a wonderful job."

"Thanks, Mom," Laura answered and then paused with her finger over the 'End Call' button. Knitting her brow, she looked at Derek.

He realized a moment too late what she wanted. "Thanks, Mom," he echoed, and Laura's expression was exasperated.

"Anytime. Goodnight."

And they hung up. The siblings didn't talk afterward, not even to say their own goodnights. Instead, they just settled in to bed and turned out the lights and hoped their mother was right… as she often was.

In the morning, the siblings packed their bags and headed to meet the crew in the lobby. Stiles was sitting in a chair sideways, legs hanging over the arm and head back like he wanted to still be sleeping. Scott was saying something to him that made him snort and kept him from nodding off, and it was curious why Stiles being conscious was even necessary. It wasn't like he had a gig today.

"Morning," Ms. McCall greeted when she saw them, her smile welcoming and warm. "We discussed your performance last night at the concert and have come to a decision."

"We do apologize for our lapse," Laura began, but Ms. McCall held up a hand to politely quiet her.

"We've decided to hire you for the length of the tour," she said and Laura's face became the sun.

"Really? Oh, thank you so much. I promise you won't regret it." And the two women shook hands. There would be an official contract to sign and they'd have to fax a copy to the home office, but a handshake was almost as good at the start.

Derek was confused though. Stiles had seemed genuinely upset with him the night before. "Why?" he asked.

Ms. McCall shrugged while Laura shot him a look that told him to stop questioning their second chance. "Stiles vouched for you," she said, motioning at the two boys a few feet away.

It seemed that, despite Scott's efforts, Stiles had still managed to nod off. Scott was poking him in the face and trying to rouse him, but Stiles just turned his head away and grumbled. It didn't make a lot of sense to Derek. Sure Derek had tackled Stiles out of the way of death, but Derek was also the two time witness to whatever was wrong with the younger man, and that didn't appear to sit well with him.

So why keep Derek around?

* * *

><p>Preview Chapter 3:<p>

Derek talks with Jordan Parrish, a man with no numbers or marks on his wrists, and has a run in with Stiles' liaison, Scott. And despite conflicting schedules, Derek and Stiles manage to have a decent conversation.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Navigating the aura-sphere's cryptic countdown would be easier if Derek had a more personable job. Laura was the one who went out and organized their crew, coordinated with each venue's local muscle, and talked to people on the phone. Derek was the one who would walk the entire venue three times to make sure he hadn't missed anything and then watched every member of the sounds, light, and stage crew to make sure no one was doing something potentially hazardous… like unscrewing stage lights.

Imitating Stiles, Derek now wore a black and red wrist band over his numbers. Between the singer's insensitive words and Emily's intrusive groping of his arm, Derek wasn't taking any more chances. If he met someone in the next few days and it seemed like they may be the one, then he'd take the wristband off and they could touch their wrists together and get the official okay from the aura-sphere and all that jazz. But until then, the wristband was staying on.

Maybe Stiles was smarter than Derek initially gave him credit for.

Rubbing his fingers over the unfamiliar fabric, Derek watched as the stage crew set up and the sound crew did a sound check. If any of this tour's crew were his One, he hadn't noticed yet. They were all nice, he supposed, but since he was nothing if not an anti-social butterfly, it was hard to get a true feel for anyone, and no one was making an effort to talk to him either.

"Boo," someone said right by his ear, and it sounded like a snap in the quiet air around Derek.

Spinning his head around, he found himself face to face with his client, who looked extremely pleased with himself for startling Derek.

"Stiles," Derek scolded and dropped his wrist.

"Did I scare you?" Stiles asked and shifted the hood on his jacket so it hung more over his face. "You didn't even notice me coming up, did you? I totally got you."

"Stiles, I have a job to do," Derek said and looked back at the crew. "Shouldn't you be getting ready for your meet and greet?"

In response, Stiles groaned. "Damn, you're no fun. I came here to escape my tour manager, not find a second one." He crossed his arms and stood beside Derek, surveying the arena and stage from their spot in the bleachers. "Well… no falling lights this time, right?"

"Your stage has no lights today. Just the sun. But hey, your stage is built from scratch. There's always the chance that it'll collapse beneath you, so don't worry," Derek answered and then knit his brow tightly together when he realized he was joking with someone.

"Awesome. And maybe this time I'll get, like, a cool bruising or a broken ankle. Then my fans will think I'm badass for surviving." And Stiles was joking back. Derek bit his cheek. This was not a typical occurrence in his life. How long could he keep this up?

"What, no injuries to show off from me tackling you to the ground?" he asked and turned his head just enough to get Stiles in view so Stiles could see him smirking.

A dramatic, disappointed sigh escaped Stiles' lips and he shrugged. "Gosh, I wish. All I got was a skinned elbow and look" – he held up his elbow for inspection and it was a healed, fresh pink – "no proof. Ms. McCall put Neosporin on it and now it's like it never happened. Didn't even go to the hospital."

"Such a disappointment," Derek drawled.

Stiles nodded. "Absolutely. Next time you save my life, I expect better from you."

"I'll do my best."

And now Stiles was full-on grinning at him, like this kind of banter was completely normal. And maybe between Stiles and Scott it was, but it wasn't normal for Derek. Despite this, he found himself smiling back. It was nothing beaming like Stiles', but it was there, toying with his lips and sending a warm feeling to his stomach, so it counted nonetheless.

Both their phones went off at the same time and broke the moment.

Derek's phone showed a text from Laura, but Stiles actually had a phone call. From the expression he made, Derek guessed it was Ms. McCall.

"Oh, hey, Mom," Stiles greeted and pushed his hood down. "What? No. I'm totally ready. I was just stopping by the stage to thank Derek for saving my life…. Yeah, yeah. I'm heading over right now. Yep. Walking as we speak. Uh-huh. See you in a second."

Judging by Stiles' expression and muttered "Shut up," Derek's face must look exactly how he felt – oddly amused and not surprised at all. Stiles was a smooth little liar and also a procrastinator. Sort of the opposite of Derek – who was kind of a terrible liar and had a work ethic that refused to let him not do his job.

"Need to head out?" Derek asked.

"Yeah," Stiles sighed, slipping his phone back into his pocket.

"Want me to walk you out?" And Derek hadn't even checked his text yet, but it could wait.

Without a second of hesitation, Stiles said, "Nah," and shook his head. "I can make my own way. Besides, we're ending on a good note here. If you walk with me, we still have time to start getting on each other's nerves."

"Valid point," Derek conceded, despite how it hurt his pride. Someone relating Derek to a bad conversation or expression was not something to be proud of, and honestly he hated to even admit that he'd caused such a thing. His mother was always talking about putting aside your personal feelings while working, and yet Derek had pretty much painted every interaction since arriving with all his hormonal emotions… which were mostly negative.

Stiles smiled at him and held his hand up in a wave as he turned away. "I'll catch you later, sour puss."

And then he was trotting down the steps and out of sight. After he was gone for a full minute, Derek mentally cursed. He'd meant to ask Stiles why exactly he'd decided to let them stay on as his bodyguards.

When he checked his text, Laura was telling him Stiles was late and asking if Derek had seen him. Sighing, Derek sent back 'No' and put his phone away.

* * *

><p>A signing event wasn't a place Derek needed or wanted to be, but Laura had volunteered to go. Every half hour, she sent him a text with an update on the event, and that was cool… if he cared about what she was sending. A third of her messages were job related. The rest, not so much.<p>

Between

'Two ppl just bumped into each other in line & found out they're soulmates. Hurray for One!'

And

'Lot of Ones here today. Expected more Zeros hoping Stiles was their One. Should I be this disappointed?'

Derek may as well have been at the event instead of overseeing set-up. Around two p.m., Derek's stomach started to growl, but he refused to leave the area unsupervised. It was probably a sad sign that one of his more senior employees popped up right at that time to relieve him.

"Get out of here, Derek. You need to eat or you'll be unfocused," Jordan Parrish ordered as he came to stand by Derek.

Parrish had come to work for them after doing a stint on the elder Stilinski's tour. He skillfully name dropped the rock star in his resume and interview with the Hale company, and it did a lot to bolster his chances despite the 'stint' being a one-time gig and not a full contract run. He'd been a local back then, but now he was with a company, now he went where the client went.

That was five years ago. And he'd been a huge change for everything at the heart of the Hale family.

"Hey, Jordan. How much aura-sphere do you think you've got in you?" Derek asked and glanced down at the man's wrist. Instead of numbers, plain skin stared back. There were no marks at all.

At the question, Jordan looked down at his wrist momentarily as well. Then he shrugged. "Not sure. I'm sure there's still plenty, even though the numbers are gone. We both know it's possible for them to come back on, like some sick light bulb, so the energy must still be there. But I don't really think about it a lot. Why?"

Now Derek shrugged – a quick roll of his shoulders. "You verge on that psychic area sometimes – like my mother."

Jordan chuckled and shook his head. "Because I know you'd starve yourself if someone didn't come relieve you of duty?" he asked and clapped Derek on the shoulder. "I'm not psychic. And neither is Talia. We're both just… empathetic. Now go eat."

A gruff grunt was all Derek could respond with. His mind was on Jordan's wrist. When you finally met 'The One', your wrist lit up like a fluorescent bulb all over and people reported warm, tingling sensations all over their bodies. Then, in an unexplainable phenomenon, your wrist went blank. No more numbers. No more countdowns. Nothing.

Except when it didn't.

Talia Hale was a good example of this. Married happily to The One for twenty-five years, her wrist blank and perfect. Then the car accident happened. Now Talia Hale's wrist was alight once more. Typically when a loved one dies, the one left behind gets a new count down. Usually it starts at zero, because someone alive long enough to see their first love die has typically already met the person who's aura matches up next-best with theirs. But for some, the countdown is back in the double digits, and middle-aged people find that jolt of youth again as they wonder and worry over their futures.

For Talia Hale, things were a little different. Her light came back on, but there was no number in place. Instead, two small dashes decorated her wrist, like a stop watch that hadn't been set. Uncle Peter called in the family doctor when the lights appeared two days after Dad's death, but he seemed displeased with their evaluation.

Sometimes when a person loses their first love, they no longer require or desire someone new to fill that hole, and sheer strength of will keeps the clock from counting. Talia had a large family and a close-knit family-like feel in her company. She had all the 'soul mates' anyone could want, according to her, and she had decided long ago that, no matter what, her first true love would be her only one.

Derek could understand that. But he couldn't help but wonder about Jordan. What would the man do if his girlfriend died in an accident like Derek's father? If those lights came back on before the police could call, if they came back on a week later, what would they do? Would they choose to move on and find their next person, or would they become eternal dashes, like his mother?

And what about Derek? What if his numbers started a new countdown before he found his one? Would he grieve someone he'd never met? And what about his second soul mate? Would their relationship be tainted by the fact that Derek had never met his first?

Shaking his head, Derek focused on filling up his plate at the food tent set up just outside the arena for the crew. There was no sense in wondering about these things. Jordan and his girlfriend were both healthy and safe, and Derek still had eighteen days to find his soul mate. Any 'what-if' scenarios were unnecessary stress and definitely unnecessary distractions from work.

'OMG Stiles just dumped caramel frap all over his shirt,' Laura texted.

'omg can you tell how interested I am?' Derek texted back.

'Supremely,' Laura answered almost too fast to be comical.

And Derek almost made a comment about her preoccupation with liveblogging the event instead of being a security guard, but then someone sat down at the table with him. With a quick glance around, Derek saw that, of the four tables set up, only two were occupied. Derek was one of the occupiers, but there were plenty of other seats around.

His new lunchtime cohort sighed instead of greeted him and then stabbed his fork into the tender meat of the ham laid out on his plate.

"Um," Derek began and then stopped, unsure how to continue. When he got no response, he tried again. "Shouldn't you be at the signing?"

Scott McCall's face screamed innocence when he finally focused on Derek, but Derek wasn't so sure about its validity. Scott was Stiles' assistant tour manager. If not at the signing, surely he had someone fancy to have lunch with at least.

"Not really," Scott said and swallowed his food. "I'm his liaison with the crew, not the public. Besides, we're friends. I'm not his shadow."

And then they ate in silence. In his chest, Derek's heart hammered with anxiety. He really needed to work on small talk with people, because he was far too nervous about messing up this conversation. Scott appeared perfectly at ease, which should make things easier, but it kinda made Derek annoyed instead.

"Did you need something?" he asked when he finished all but the mashed potatoes on his plate.

"No. You just looked lonely." And Scott shoved a heaping spoonful of his own potatoes into his mouth. Derek grimaced and Scott tried not to laugh before he swallowed. "Listen, dude. Stiles is cool, alright? And he noticed you don't hang out with anyone, so he asked me to make sure you got your daily dosage of human interaction."

"How kind of him," Derek grunted out, and really he supposed he should be grateful that someone cared about that, but at the same time he felt insulted – like Stiles didn't think Derek could handle his own social life. "But you don't have to. I'm fine."

"I can see that."

Derek huffed and focused on his potatoes, which he pushed around his plate a bit before regrouping them into one spot and then repeating the process before finally deciding to eat them. When he looked up, Scott was staring at him, but the younger man quickly looked away when he got caught.

"What?" Derek snapped.

"Nothin." But under Derek's glare, Scott couldn't hold up. "Why are you a security guard? Couldn't you be like… a model or an actor or anything?"

"My family is all in security, like the Argents. It's what we do, and we all happen to like doing it," Derek said, setting down his spoon on his empty plate.

"Alright, that's cool, I guess. Family business. I mean, I guess that's part of the reason I started doing this too. My mom loves her job and I've been on sets and stages and tour buses most of my life, so it kind of soaked in. I was thinking of branching off into being a producer though. Know what I mean?"

"If you're suggesting I think outside the box and find new employment, you don't have to be cryptic about it. You can just ask me to leave." He stood then, taking his plate with him to the trash, and Scott followed immediately after him.

"No, that's not what I was saying. I was just saying I love my job but I have other interests. It was a simple conversation." And he slipped between Derek and the trash to throw his stuff away first.

"You want to know my interests? Fine. I'll tell you if you move," Derek agreed and Scott had never moved so quickly. Derek took his time throwing out his plate, partially to make Scott wait and partially to give himself time to think about the answer. "I like dogs – all kinds, and when I was five, I wanted to own a dog breeding business," he said finally. "Enough?"

"For now, I guess." And Scott shrugged before walking off with a slight bounce in his step. His odd glee over the conversation made Derek uneasy, but there was nothing much he could do about it, especially since he had no proof it had any malicious meaning.

Suddenly Derek had an awful, terrible thought. His mother gave him this job to make him socialize. Oh, that was evil. It was positively Peter of her, and he would not forgive her. Today.

* * *

><p>A few hours before dinner, Laura, Stiles, and the rest of the crew returned from the signing. Stiles regaled them with facts about the length of the line and how it zigzagged through the store, went out the door, and disappeared out of sight of the glass storefront, and about the people he met and things he signed.<p>

"I signed a lot of pictures and CDs and paraphernalia but three girls and a guy asked me to sign body parts and, oh my sweet baby Jesus, there was a guy who tried to start up a biblical discussion with me right there at the table, like there weren't fifty billion people waiting in line. And another guy told me he loved me but that it was because the government was using my music to brainwash people. Now he was funny."

And the stories went on and on until dinner. Most people listening had been present and jumped in to aid the stories when it was warranted, but mostly Stiles needed no encouragement or support. Of those who weren't at the signing but were at story time, there were three and one of them was Derek. He leaned against a wall as Stiles was given new clothes to change into, vanished behind a changing wall, walked out in casual clothes, and was then prepped for dinner. But no matter how many times he was interrupted for news about work or to be asked a question about something unrelated, Stiles kept going back to the signing event when he was allowed to talk freely once more.

Odd to say, but Derek found it slightly endearing and definitely comical.

When he and Laura retired to their room for the night, she sighed dramatically and dropped her jacket over a chair.

"You know how they say you should never meet your idols?" she asked, slumping into the squeaky fabric.

"What? Tired of Stiles already?" Derek replied, sitting on his bed and removing his shoes. Honestly, he was surprised. It usually took more for Laura to stop liking something.

"No." But she sighed. "He's still great. He's fun and he's funny and he's so talented. But Derek, he talks SO much. And I blame my low tolerance for it on you. You're virtual muteness has ruined me."

"Nope. Can't blame me. I'm not mute around you," Derek reminded and picked up the room service menu.

Leaning forward and balancing her chin in her hand, Laura surveyed him. "Yeah, but you sure don't talk half as much as Stiles, or anyone else for that matter. It's a good thing your soul mate likes the strong, silent type."

It was the first time Laura had ever brought up the subject of Derek's timer. Usually she waited for him to say something, or she reacted to him reacting to his numbers. The odd broach in their rules of conversation drew Derek's attention out of the menu and over to his sister.

"What?" he asked smartly.

Her shoulders rolled in a shrug. "I don't know. I guess seeing all those fans today who weren't there to make Stiles fall in love with them… and even those who were… it made me wonder about you and how long it'll be before you figure out who's aura matches yours. I mean, I just want you to be happy, you know? You smile and talk more when you're happy, and you've been so quiet since-"

She cut herself off, and Derek gave her a steady stare, daring her to continue but also asking her not to.

Taking a deep breath, she continued. "All I'm saying is that even without a true love, you still found happiness once, and I'm just excited for you to find it again… and for forever this time."

"Thanks, Laura," Derek said, and he meant it for everything she left unsaid as well as for all her well wishes spoken out loud.

And as he drifted off to sleep that night, he expected to think about the past, but instead he thought of Stiles and dreamt about asking the singer to sign his chest.

* * *

><p>Preview Chapter 4:<p>

There's a party thrown in honor of the new tour and everyone's there – major artists like Bono and John Stilinski, and plenty of press. Derek is meant to be looking for future work, but everywhere he looks, he sees something that reminds him of soul mates. Unsurprisingly, Stiles and he end up disagreeing, but maybe the evening isn't a total loss. Derek thinks he may have a clue to who his soul mate is.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Soul mate counters were not monogamy based spiritually devices. Very early on in the study of the aura-sphere, scientists and theorists and astrologers all noticed the way the lights came back on after the death of a loved one. This meant, obviously, that one person's soul was not linked to just one other person's soul. While the initial soul mate was special and absolute, it was entirely possible to find love with a secondary love interest.

Whether that second person was an old friend, a new coworker, someone you bumped into in a fast food restaurant – the point was that it was entirely possible to fall in love without the requirement of being first time soul mates.

While the more conservative people worried about this knowledge giving freedom for soul mate couples to cheat on one another, that was really only part of the possibilities that started being discussed. While having potential secondary soul mates did cause some relationship tension between couples, the identifiable rate of adultery in soul mate couples was less than ten percent. The more interesting point was in polyamory.

The question posed was this: If your soul has more than one soul it matches up with, then those multiple other souls must also match up. So what's to stop the three or more of you from living perfectly happy, cohabitating lives?

Derek had personally never had to face this question. He was not a polyamorous person, and while he knew no polyamorous people, he also saw no flaw in the logic of that base question. Despite having no issues with polyamory, Derek didn't see it for himself. He wanted to find one person to dedicate himself to.

And he hoped to find that person during the first week of the concert tour. Sure the first concert hadn't been very promising – what with Stiles and Emily – and yeah the outdoor concert hadn't provided him any potential mates either, but this next bit? Even as antisocial as he was, Derek couldn't possibly not meet new people at this next event.

A party.

Not just any party. It was a backers party. Not only would Stiles and his management team be there, but so would other performers and sponsors and promoters. Derek and Laura were invited – as well as Laura's plus one, Duke – to represent Hale Securities and perhaps win over new clientele.

So while Derek didn't like making small talk and being chatty, he knew very well how to impress people when the time called for it, and he could fake a polite conversation just fine. Plus he'd have Laura on his side, so what could go wrong?

The answer was actually Stiles, which really confused Derek beyond anything the singer had already done.

Derek was in a tuxedo for the black tie event, but it appeared the dress code was flexible for the wealthy and famous. Bono, for instance, showed up in a pale peach cowboy hat, and while he was otherwise wearing all black, it was no suit and tie. Stiles was similar. He wore tight black jeans, a snug fit black undershirt and a black leather jacket. Watching him run around hugging people and smiling and laughing and kneeling down to greet someone's kid was…. Well Derek downed two glasses of champagne before Laura caught him in the act and told the wait staff not to provide him any further drinks.

"What is wrong with you?" she scolded afterward and slapped him on the shoulder. "We're here on business."

"I know. I don't know what got in to me," Derek apologized and rubbed his hands together.

He shouldn't even be noticing Stiles. The siblings were here to scope out future assignments, not focusing on the one they already had. There were other units of Hale Securities guarding the event, but those did not include Laura or Derek Hale. And even without business in the way, Derek really shouldn't be noticing Stiles anyway. The brat was barely an adult and while Derek wasn't an old man, there was almost ten years between them in age. Not to mention they didn't get along… unless they cut conversations in half.

"Oh, but he's so attractive, isn't he?" Laura swooned, and Derek did his best not to physically react.

It sounded like she was referring to his thoughts, but when Derek followed her gaze he found she was not looking at Stiles Stilinski. She was looking at the man who'd just walked in – the very famous John Stilinski.

"Sure, if you like older guys," Duke remarked on her other side, and smirked down at her. He was about a foot taller, and Laura often remarked that it was one of the things she loved about him.

"Oh you know I'm just window shopping. I have no money to go to market. I spent all of it on you," Laura said, and it was quite possibly the cheesiest thing Derek had ever heard her say. But it worked for Duke. They were smiling at each other and then kissing and then Derek had to excuse himself to escape.

It probably wouldn't have been as hard to stomach if Duke had been concerned or worried, but he was being flirty. If he was actually concerned with her liking older men then it would be different, but Laura was thirty and Deucalion was forty-two, so her interest in older men was entirely in the man's favor. Their teasing and flirty smiles were going to give him a cavity.

Derek was twenty-eight, and age didn't bother him at all. Let Laura date whoever she wanted. Still, Derek was pretty sure his soul mate would end up being less than twelve years in age difference, and for that he was grateful.

By the snack table, Derek felt safe enough to people watch and find a target client. John Stilinski had spotted his son and the two were exclaiming greetings and hugging and being a general distraction. The elder Stilinski was dressed more appropriate to the style of the party, in a fashionable, if slightly old fashioned, tuxedo.

Stiles was so excited that he forgot he was holding a soda and promptly dropped it as he threw his arms around his father. The can hit the ground standing, but the drink still splattered out and onto both singers' pants. They didn't seem to care though. They just laughed about it.

"They really light up a room, huh?" a female voice asked and Derek turned his face away from the two, looking instead at Melissa McCall.

"You could call it that," he agreed half-assed-ly and she gently slapped his shoulder as she laughed.

"Of course you would be the one to try and pretend," she said. "I've seen you watching them, watching Stiles." Derek felt his shoulders tense, and from Melissa's expression she saw the change. "I'm not here to reprimand you, so you can lose the tension, but I did come to warn you. The Stilinskis are a fantastic family. They're such nice people, and anyone with them for the long run is extremely lucky… but they are hard to get near. Since the death of his wife, Claudia, John's been… I guess you could say distant. They look close now, but a few years ago, Stiles couldn't be in the same room with his father, and… some other things were happening around the same time, things I'm not at liberty to explain."

"Why are you telling me this?" Derek asked, squinting at the happy father-son pair. He couldn't imagine them ever being estranged, not even for a week.

"Because I've watched Stiles push people away for less than the bickering you two do. Oh yeah, I know about it. Stiles told me all about your conversations. And because I don't want you to get excited if he doesn't push you away. We've been burned before." Melissa frowned and crossed her arms, as if she didn't like the topic or having to bring it up. Ultimately, her expression was considering, and Derek felt it was half an apology for her words and half a sign that she trusted him enough to even have said them.

"You don't have to worry, Ms. McCall. I'm just doing my job. I don't intend to get any closer to Stiles than I have to." Professionalism was a matter of pride in the Hale Family… although less so with Talia, so it was interesting that everyone else had picked it up. Talia didn't need professionalism to get people on her side.

"Please. Call me-"

"Melissa?" The voice was excited as well as unsure, and the unique combination drew both of their attentions.

John Stilinski was a few feet away, hesitating on the edge of some invisible barrier around Derek and Melissa… something Derek just noticed no one was broaching. When had they become so alone at the snack table?

Looking back at Melissa, Derek expected her to be giving him a dismissing look, ending their conversation and sending him away, but instead he found her eyes solely on John Stilinski. Her smile kept faltering between varying levels of happy and her hand came up to toy with a necklace hanging there.

"John," she started and then paused to swallow. "It's… Well it's good to see you. Been awhile."

"Yeah. Like, what, four months?" he asked and shuffled forward into their bubble. "How, um, how have you been?"

"Good," Melissa answered too quickly and laughed nervously. "Really, really good. And you? How was your tour in Europe?"

The small talk and goo goo eyes were sending shivers down Derek's spine in equal measure and he excused himself to find a new solitude. First Laura and Duke and then John Stilinski and Melissa McCall- Were those two even soul mates? Derek hadn't checked their wrists, but they'd each already been married once and had children from those previous spouses. But Stiles did call her "Mom" sometimes. How long had they known each other? How well were they acquainted? Did John know his son called her mom?

It seemed to Derek that there were more layers to his current clientele than he'd originally expected, and that was distracting enough that he couldn't properly focus on the other party guests.

And it was also hard to think about new clients or soul mates when Derek couldn't find any peace or quiet.

"You believe in second love, right?" And this time it was Stiles who had sought him out in the crowd. "Cause I really love Ms. McCall, you know? In a mom kind of way. I mean, that should be expected, I guess, since she half-raised me after my real mom died. And Dad loves her too, at least I think he does, but I also worry he's gonna be one of those guys who never looks at anyone after their first soul mate dies. And I just want him to be happy, you know? I think she could make him happy."

"Stiles, how much have you had to drink?" Derek asked and crossed his arms, leaning back against a pole that had waves painted around and up it. So he was sticking to the edges of the event and yet he still couldn't escape. … Well, that was what he wanted, right? To be forced to meet people? To find his soul mate?

"Actually, not a lot. I'm just naturally chatty. Your sour face and my annoying personality just sort of clash too quick for you to really notice." But the half empty glass in his hand argued against him, especially as he downed half of the remaining liquid right then. "Okay, stop trying to break my brain with your disbelieving eyebrows. It's my third one, alright?"

A waiter passed by then, and Stiles gulped down the remainder of his drink like a shot of whiskey and then replaced his glass with one from the waiter's tray.

Before he could get the liquid to his lips, Derek snatched the drink away and handed it back to the waiter. Stiles complained a little too loudly, but a glare from Derek shut him up mid-word.

"Wh-What?" Stiles asked, rolling his shoulders and adjusting his jacket. "It's just a few drinks."

"It's a problem," Derek grunted. "Look, you're dad- I mean, maybe you could get your head out of your ass and stop drinking before it hurts someone around you."

Okay. Stiles and Derek hadn't really gotten along yet, unless you counted that one conversation, but whatever fraction of camaraderie they'd built up, Derek was certain he'd just destroyed it. Because the perfect way to make friends was to remind them of their father's drinking habits.

God, he was such an idiot.

After the death of his wife and beloved soul mate, Claudia, John Stilinski was next in the news when he checked into a rehab for alcoholics. He was out of the music business for three months while he got his life on track, and since leaving with a golden stamp of approval from his sponsor he had reportedly never had a drop to drink. It had been roughly five years.

Maybe it was the alcohol, but Stiles seemed frozen, stunned and having trouble figuring out how he should react.

"Excuse me," a timid, female voice broke their silence and though they both turned to see who it was, Stiles' eyes quickly returned to Derek. The woman speaking was a little older than Derek, with long dark hair and bright red lips. Her skin was pale, and her skirt was a tad too short, her shirt with a v-neck just shallow enough to be tasteful. Her professional look was verging on flirty.

"Can I help you?" Derek asked, regaining his composure. He could be professional. He could. He just seemed to have trouble maintaining that when it involved anyone named Stilinski.

"Yes. Hi. My name is Jennifer Blake. I'm a writer, mostly journalism for Rolling Stones magazine, but my own work as well. Sorry, not important. You're… Derek Hale, right? Of Hale Security?" she asked.

With a nod, Derek took her extended hand and they shook. Despite Stiles Stilinski being less than two feet away from her, Jennifer never looked away from Derek. In fact, she seemed unable to notice anyone else in the room, and her breath came out in a tiny, nervous laugh.

"I'm sorry. I'm just a fan of your family's work, and I'd heard of you, but-… Well this may sound inappropriate, but you're more handsome than the stories give you credit for," she admitted and tucked her hair behind her ear.

Something in Derek's stomach churned and he smiled just a little. "Thank you, Ms. Blake. You look lovely tonight as well."

"Jennifer. I mean, call me Jennifer." Despite the innocence in her tone, the way she bit her lip made Derek think of someone flirting forcefully. The way she stood, not slouching but still somehow smaller than she should be, and the nervous way she kept pushing her hair back – Derek was probably imagining the sexual clues.

"Jennifer," Derek said in agreement. "Sorry, did you have any questions for me?"

While she took a deep breath, the journalist reached out and took up Derek's right hand in her own. At the same moment, as if trying to beat her to it, another hand snapped around Derek's right wrist, over the cuffs that hid his glowing zeroes from view. A startling shock ran through Derek's body and he sucked in a tiny, surprised breath.

Barely a heartbeat later, the second hand was removed as both Jennifer and Derek glanced over at its owner. Stiles flexed his hand and frowned, then he pursed his lips and looked between the other two. His gaze lingered on Derek, but then he settled his eyes on Jennifer.

"Sorry. Didn't mean to interrupt, but I have other people to go say hi too, and didn't want Mr. Hale to worry I'd been kidnapped under his nose or something. It was nice meeting you." The singer skillfully took Jennifer's hand to shake, the one that had been holding Derek's. "Please make sure to return him by midnight, or he might turn into a moldy old pumpkin." And then Stiles turned on his heel and strode away into the crowd. As he passed a waiter, Derek saw him reach for a glass of champagne before reconsidering and turn to accept a soda from a different waiter.

"Awfully protective of you, isn't he?" Jennifer said, rubbing her hands together and staring hard at Stiles' retreating figure.

"If you say so," Derek answered, but she was right.

The relationship between Derek and Stiles was choppy at best. Insults, sass, and banter were common. They didn't get along well or talk about themselves, and the one time Stiles tried, Derek had basically suggested Stiles was on the road to alcoholism for having four glasses of champagne. The whole thing was a horrible train wreck and yet –

And yet Stiles had defended the Hales to his manager so they could keep the job instead of having it handed over to the Argents. And yet Stiles had sought Derek out when avoiding Melissa. And yet he apparently had taken offense to Jennifer interrupting another one of their downward spiral conversations.

"Let's try this again," Jennifer said, smiling and locking gazes with Derek, cutting off the man's thoughts of Stiles. "I was wondering if… if you're not opposed to the idea, if maybe you'd like to have a drink with me sometime."

Eyebrows raised, Derek wondered if he'd misunderstood. Have a drink? Like go out to a bar? With her? Maybe he hadn't been reading the flirting signs wrong.

"I know you're extremely busy with the tour, but I'm doing a story on Stiles and the tour anyway, so you might actually see me around quite a bit, and I'd hate for us to be strangers. So-," and here she paused her quick speech to take a steady breath, "Would you like to?"

The tingling in Derek's body had ceased awhile ago, when Stiles had pulled Jennifer's hand away, but his hand and wrist still prickled. Letting his eyes wander over Jennifer, he knew that she was beautiful. Her curves, her eyes, her smile. She was sweet, if a bit shy, and that was endearing as well. And the tingling when they touched- didn't that mean…

"Sure," he agreed and smiled once more. "I'd like that very much."

Generally, Derek would distance himself from advances like this. He was supposed to be looking for clients, not dates, but his zeroes tugged at his mind. Jennifer could very well be his soul mate. When she spoke to him was the only time Stiles had left his mind in days. That kind of all-encompassing attention had to be a sign, right? And Derek might be a bit dim in relationships, but he wasn't about to pass up on a sign like that.

* * *

><p>On the bus ride back to the hotel, the group was joined by Stiles' father. He and Duke discovered they both had an interest in owning boats, but not in actually boating, and somehow that got them discussing plans for dog adoption. Derek pointedly pretended not to overhear them, especially when they hinted at making it a group effort sort of deal. In no way would Derek be part of adopting an entire shelter worth of dogs, and John shouldn't be agreeing either. He was far too busy to care for what sounded like a plan for ten dogs. And anyway, Derek had given up on that dream when he was seven.<p>

The sudden camaraderie between the two was weird for him, although he couldn't pinpoint why. Derek had always liked Deucalion. Once you were able to get past the oddity of his name, he was… well he was probably exactly what the name made you expect. He was old-fashioned and from a wealthy family, but he never looked down on clients. He admired people who aspired to do more with their lives, to touch people with their passions and change the world. All things considered, he was almost too optimistic about people.

When Duke, as they'd taken quickly to calling him, met the children of Talia Hale, he'd been just an interested philanthropist. Talia had been hosting her annual Christmas party to raise money for community programs that helped the homeless and those unable to afford schooling, and Duke had attended to donate. Meeting Laura and having his wrist light up like a Christmas tree was unexpected, but their arms had bumped while both reaching for things at the snack table and then they'd knocked over the platter of deviled eggs in their shock, and he offered to pay for her dry cleaning while she offered to take him out for drinks, and it didn't take long for their laughing to draw the attention of every Hale in the building.

Once upon a time, Derek had been younger and less interested in his numbers on a serious note. He was too caught up in the social idea of your numbers being a mark of your maturity and how long until you were a true man instead of being caught up in the curiosity of who the person was that would supposedly capitalize that manliness. When he met Duke, one of the first questions he'd asked the man was how it felt to find his soul mate when he was in his thirties.

Most people found their mates in their twenties, so hadn't he been embarrassed by the abnormally large number on his wrist? Hadn't people made fun of him? Duke just smiled and told Derek that teenagers were cruel, but it didn't make them right. Since zeroing out, Deucalion had pondered over every possible woman he met, because he knew it would be a woman, and yet Laura had snuck in under the radar and happily surprised him by the table. She'd been everything he'd been looking for but had somehow overlooked. So no, he wasn't upset about how long it took. He was just pleased that it finally had.

Sitting on that bus, rubbing his fingers over his wristband, Derek thought of Jennifer and wondered if his wrist would light up if he pressed it to hers. Would she like that or would she be disappointed? Derek wasn't exactly a social winner. When he tried to be social, he tended to come off as arrogant or rude or both. Would she like that? If she was his soul mate, she'd have to, right?

Stiles was laid out on the couch beside Derek. His feet were barely an inch from being in Derek's lap, and his head was on the tiny couch pillow that matched the one on Derek's other side. When Derek looked over at him, thinking about how Stiles knew all about Derek's grumpy social skills, he saw the singer had headphones in and his eyes closed. With the steady rising of his chest, it was hard to tell if the younger man was asleep or awake.

One arm was raised above his head, dangling off the end of the couch, and the other was resting on his stomach. When Stiles shifted slightly, his arm pulled on his shirt and exposed a sliver of pale skin and a trail of hair disappearing down into the singer's black jeans. In a second shift, Stiles stretched out his legs, simply but effectively claiming Derek as part of his temporary bed.

Honestly, Derek wanted to get mad and push the legs off, sending Stiles sprawling to the floor. But instead, he swallowed the urge and crossed his arms. Stiles seemed more tired than he should be after a simple party, and if it was related to his illness, then Derek didn't want to disturb him before need be.

When he looked around for something to distract him from Stiles' happy trail, he found Melissa glancing up covertly from the book she was reading. Her eyes met Derek's and she smiled and shrugged. Whatever she'd been worried about during the party was gone from her eyes, and the weight on her shoulders seemed lighter.

As she returned to reading, Derek wondered if she looked more relaxed because John was there. Was that what soul mates did for each other? They made each other more relaxed? And why did it have to relate back to soul mates? Derek didn't used to think like this. Before he zeroed out, he would've assumed Melissa's calm persona meant she trusted Derek, but now he was stuck in a loop of trying to tie together the threads from Melissa McCall and John Stilinski, as though seeing how they fit together would help him figure his own life out.

Stiles opened and closed his mouth a few times, making noises like he was thirsty, and rolled onto his side. One of his ear buds fell out and Derek stopped messing with his wrist while he noted the place where Stiles' ear turned into the pale skin of his cheek. His arms dropped to his lap, over Stiles' legs, as he took the time to familiarize himself with the pattern of moles on Stiles' profile.

Melissa knew about Stiles' illness and she didn't seem concerned at all about Stiles being tired. Perhaps it was just concert fatigue. Still Derek found himself worrying and wondering if there was any external proof of the sickness or if it was all internal. Maybe Melissa would tell him one day… or Scott.

Across from him, Laura had nodded off on the table but she groaned then, and he was sure that if she woke up while Stiles was still sprawled out across Derek's lap, she would have a small heart attack and pester him for the rest of the week about it. It was incentive to follow through on his impulse to push Stiles off, but instead he just smiled and imagined all the ways he could taunt her while she questioned him.

It took twenty minutes to get to the hotel from that thought, and somewhere in that time Derek dozed off too, his hands resting on Stiles' knees.

* * *

><p>Preview Chapter 5:<p>

Derek has a date with Jennifer Blake, unless it's not a date?, and with Laura's iPod. A surprise opening act joins the tour, for better or worse, and Derek finds out he likes caramel in more than just his coffee… which makes breathing surprisingly difficult.


	5. Chapter 5

A/N: The song Derek listens to in this chapter is "Gasoline" by Rob Thomas.

* * *

><p>Chapter 5<p>

"Oh well, oh well. I guess you got it all worked out so far. You adjust your reason until you see the light from where you are."

Derek sat in his hotel room, notepad in front of him. He had meant to write notes about the people he met at the party, an update for his mother on business and potential clients, but the page was blank. Over his ears was a pair of red headphones attached to an iPod. Not his iPod, but Laura's. So long as it got back in her bag before she noticed it was missing, all would be fine.

"Won't you listen to me? Well I tried so hard to give you what you need, and it burned like gasoline. Oh no."

Stiles' voice drifted through the speakers, almost disinterested in its tone, but also sad. The whole album, actually, was filled with the strange tone. The songs weren't hard-rock angsty or even rage against the system style compositions, and yet Derek got anger and disappointment and sadness out of all the songs.

"It never took a lot to make this hard. Cause you're so off-balance, and I knew all the words to set you off."

Narrowing his eyes, Derek looked down at the track name. This was the fifth song on the album, and he was starting to get concerned. The album title was "Push", like the song Stiles had sung to Derek on stage.

Wait. No.

He hadn't sung it to Derek. It was in the set list before Stiles ever met Laura and Derek Hale, and Stiles had only looked over at Derek during that song because they'd been fighting and the song was about-

"Won't you listen to me? Well I tried so hard to give you what you need, and it burned like gasoline. Burned like gasoline. Oh no. Burned like gasoline."

Was this a break-up album? These songs were about fighting with someone you loved, about things not working out. Derek had thought they were ambiguous, sung for the fans who would go wild with it, but the way they were sung and the wording… these were actual break-up songs, weren't they?

Checking the clock, Derek quickly backed out of the album and clicked on The Fray's album instead. Then he slid the iPod and headset into Laura's suitcase and returned to his seat at the desk. Less than a minute later, Laura strolled inside. Exactly on time, as always.

"Hey," she greeted and presented him with a coffee. "You make that list for mom yet?"

"No. Working on it," Derek said, which wasn't a complete lie. He'd been trying, but he'd also been distracted. "Did you have anyone to write down? Someone I didn't meet?"

"Missy Elliot," Laura said flippantly, which was a joke because Missy Elliot hadn't been at the party. Then Laura dropped down on the bed and leaned forward. "More important, actually, is who you met that I didn't."

"And who's that?" Derek asked, quickly scribbling down the names of everyone he could remember speaking to. He was meant to make a short list for his mom of the people who seemed the most interested, but he was on a time crunch.

With a scoff, Laura shifted to lie down. "Uh, Miss Blake? Stiles told me she was practically eating you with her eyes."

"Stiles?" And now Derek couldn't remember his uncle's first name, much less anyone he met last night.

Smirking, Laura pretty much hummed when she spoke. "Oh yeah. He was in the room when I went down to speak with Melissa. Ranting away to Scott while Melissa and I spoke business. Miss Blake was batting her eyes and leaning into your personal space. Sounds like someone really wanted to get your attention. So… Did you get her number?"

"Yes, actually. I did," Derek said, and hoped that would be the end of it. Laura was always putting her nose in his business, though, so he should have known better.

"Wait, yes?" she asked and sat up again. "And you're going to call her?"

"I texted her this morning. She's covering the concert tomorrow night so I told her we could get lunch before. She accepted. I figured you could handle the prep work for an hour." And Derek pulled his phone from his pocket as he spoke, opening up a message to his mother.

While he remade the list from his notepad, he took note of the distinct silence behind him. Laura was never so quiet about Derek's personal life… or any part of his life, for that matter. After hitting send, he frowned and turned to look at her.

"Something wrong?" he asked.

She was cross legged on the bed, hunched over and pressing her hand to her lips contemplatively. At the question, however, she perked up. "Nope. Nothing. But hey, you know what? I think Stiles was a little jealous of your date. He told me to warn you about people who seem too anxious."

"Considering he's the one who thought I'd need help finding my soul mate, that's surprisingly rude of him. If he has time to be invading my personal life, he should really focus on his own," Derek grunted and then looked over at Laura's bag where the iPod was hiding. "Hey, Laura. Has Stiles ever dated before?"

At first Laura looked like she wanted to say some choice words to him, but then she sighed and tilted her head as she thought. "Nothing the public heard about," she finally determined. "I wouldn't be surprised if he had, though. Why?"

"No reason," Derek said and turned back to the desk, tapping his pencil on his notepad and trying to think about anything or anyone else.

* * *

><p>Now that Derek's numbers were so important to him, he started taking notice of other people's wrists. When he'd met Stiles, he'd thought the singer was a bit odd for the wrist bands, and maybe he was going overboard with the bandages underneath, but now that Derek looked around, he noticed that quite a few people used things to cover their wrists.<p>

In the coffee shop alone, half the patrons wore some type of wrist guard, long sleeves, or fat bracelets and watches. The other half wore their numbers proudly – a mix of different times and blank skin. Thinking back to John Stilinski's wrist, Derek recalled the expensive watch covering his wrist, and then Melissa had those long sleeved cardigans. Both of their wrists showed zeroes, he was sure of it, and part of him wanted to grab their wrists and set them together to prove his own theory that they were compatible, but-

"Are you listening?" Jennifer asked, drawing Derek out of his thoughts.

"Sorry. I got distracted. You were saying?" he prompted and focused his attention on his date.

She was a fan of the big bracelet cover-up, but as his soul mate, her wrist most definitely held a big, bright set of zeros. In her hands, held in her delicate fingers, was a mug that used to hold black coffee with two sugars added. Her bracelet didn't budge an inch as she set the mug down to keep talking.

"I was telling you about my article. I did a piece about the Argents awhile back and I asked if you'd like to know some of their dirty secrets. You know, so maybe you could take them down a notch and win some of their clients," Jennifer explained.

But Derek shook his head before she was even done. "No, that's not how we operate. We win over clients with our skills and capability, not by shaming the competition… but thanks. It was a nice offer."

Never had a Hale resorted to dirty tricks to beat the Argents. Except that one time when Uncle Peter somehow got his hands on nude photos of golden child Kate Argent and they spread like wildfire on the internet. Not that anyone, including Derek, could prove Peter did it or ever had the images in his possession, but Derek knew he'd done it, and so did the Argents, and that was the important part.

That was six years ago, and honestly Derek was surprised the Argents hadn't tried to get revenge yet.

"Honorable," Jennifer said, her voice a downright purr. "I like that."

When his stomach rolled over in response, Derek took a huge gulp of his caramel iced coffee to quiet it. That purr was powerful, and he hadn't expected it from someone who looked so unimposing. She reached for his hand and brushed her fingers over his, sending a tiny shudder through his arm. Every time she touched him, it was like feeling his skin prickle with goose bumps, and it made his heart quicken.

Clearing his throat, Derek made a point of looking at his watch. "Sorry. I have to start heading back. The show tonight has a big opening act and we have to prepare for double security."

"Oh? Who's the opening act?" Jennifer asked, standing with Derek.

With a slight smirk, Derek shrugged. "A… friend of a friend of my family."

* * *

><p>When the door opened to the second tour bus, no one was expecting the forceful woman who stepped off. Her hair was like fire, curled and crimped to fall around her face like a lion's mane, and her tight lips and stern brow made most of the gathered welcoming party take a step back. She wasted no time, and as soon as her hundred dollar kitten heels touched the asphalt, she was clicking her way over to Melissa McCall.<p>

"Ms. McCall," she greeted, her voice all business. "Tell me you have doubled the security for tonight's show. After what happened at Stiles' first concert, you can understand our worries about safety."

"Of course, Ms. Martin," Melissa greeted with a polite smile. "And you can understand that I'd rather discuss the details with your mother."

There was a scoff and the red head opened her mouth to argue, but then an older woman of similar appearance cleared her throat in warning, and the hot shot red head rolled her eyes and walked away from Ms. McCall.

"Lydia, it's very rude to suggest people aren't doing their jobs," Mrs. Martin scolded and made her way over to Melissa. "Sorry about her. She's very protective."

In the crowd, Laura leaned into Derek and pursed her lips. "Well I guess it's good to see Lydia hasn't changed," she murmured and Derek nodded his agreement.

Lydia Martin was a bit of star in the Hale Security family. At only sixteen years old, she became known in the music business for taking control of situations she was not in charge of. Her mother, Natalie Martin, was just like Melissa McCall. She managed a few different small-time singers and acts before landing her big gig with her current client. But Lydia was the one who made headlines. Whether bad or good, Lydia's no-games attitude had won her the respect or fear of many.

She was a mother bear in the body of a now-twenty-one-year-old woman.

Of course there was another reason she was famous in the Hale Security family.

"Lydia?" a voice called from the back of the ground and Jordan Parrish pushed his way to the front. The young woman turned to face the call and anyone who hadn't stepped back before did so then…except for Jordan.

When he got to the front, Lydia's face broke into a warm smile. "Jordan," she greeted. It was not ecstatic. It was not energetic. But it was genuinely pleased. Apparently only the Hales could tell. The hired help didn't seem so sure, and one of them gave Parrish a wary look as he grinned and headed for Lydia.

Jordan stopped just short of Lydia and took a deep breath. "It's really good to see you," he said.

There was another scoff from Lydia and then she was smiling too. "Oh shut up and hug me, idiot."

Then Jordan was wrapping his arms around her and lifting her off the ground as she laughed and wrapped her arms around his strong neck. The tension in the crowd weakened, but people still seemed confused. After a long moment, Jordan finally set her back on her feet and then she pulled him down to her height for a kiss. He was only a few inches taller, but you could really tell the difference when she manhandled him like that. Jordan didn't mind though.

"Good to see that hasn't changed either," Derek muttered and this time Laura nodded, a warm smile on her lips.

Jordan Parrish joined the Hale Security firm five years ago. Everyone instantly loved him, or at least couldn't say anything bad about him. He had a way with people that was too similar to Talia's gifts for anyone to express any cross feelings. And then two years ago, while working a show, he'd run into the beautiful and young Miss Lydia Martin.

She'd liked him because he didn't flinch when she spoke and honestly seemed to consider everything she said worth listening to. He liked her because she was loyal to her friends and believed in herself, and she always told him he had the kindest heart in the world. Honestly, Derek couldn't even remember how they'd finally brushed arms and found out they were soul mates, but he's pretty sure that whatever happened was instigated by Lydia.

Their relationship really threw the Hale Security family into a short-lived panic. Not because they had anything against Lydia – oh no. It was who Lydia was so protective of and who her mother worked for.

Stepping off the bus at the end of Lydia and Jordan's display of affection was a young woman with wavy black hair and pretty, full lips. She smiled shyly at the PDA and rubbed at her covered wrists, a motion Derek was too familiar with these days.

"Hey Lydia, you might want to consider letting him breathe," she joked despite her demeanor, and when Lydia broke off her kiss, she turned to smile smugly at the other girl.

"I think someone's a bit jealous," Lydia said and tilted her head. Jordan laughed softly, his eyes on Lydia. "Get yourself a soul mate, Allison, and then we'll see the pot call the kettle black."

Now Melissa stepped forward and held out her hand to shake Allison's hand. "Miss Argent, welcome to the tour."

A small shocked noise caught Derek's attention behind him and he turned his head around to see who made it. Stiles was there, his conspicuous hoodie in place, and his eyes were wide. When he saw Derek take notice of him, he made wild motions with his hands to suggest Derek should keep quiet. With a small nod of his head, Derek accepted and Stiles calmed, but then he started making new hand motions indicating Allison and then Derek and then an iffy motion, and honestly Derek had no idea what he was trying to say at all.

* * *

><p>"No, but it just hit me!" Stiles exclaimed when Derek walked into his dressing room twenty minutes later.<p>

After their failed communication attempt, Stiles just mouthed to meet him in his room asap and left. As soon as Allison and her team were escorted away, Derek excused himself and headed inside to find out the cause of Stiles' wild actions.

"She's an Argent! You're a Hale! What was Melissa thinking when she hired you?" he ranted, spinning slightly in his little chair.

Derek grabbed the back of it to stop the movement and leaned over the other male. "You don't think she should have hired us? Weren't you the one who defended our employment?"

"That's not what I meant. I meant there's history between your families. She's the competition! No wonder the Argents wanted the contract so bad. Did you know she was gonna be running with us for a few shows?" Stiles asked.

"Yes," Derek replied, and for some reason Stiles swallowed heavily. Trying not to focus on the other's Adam's apple, Derek continued. "But she's not the competition. Allison is a singer, not a security firm. She left the family business to follow her dreams. I've known her for a few years, and I'm telling you, no one assigned to this detail has any hard feelings toward her for whom her family is."

"But someone in your family does," Stiles clarified and lowered his legs to the floor, sitting up straighter.

"Yes," Derek said again. They were very close to each other, especially with Stiles' new position, and Derek had a front row seat to the caramel depths of Stiles' eyes. "My… "

What was this feeling? Derek couldn't move. His hand was glued to the back of Stiles' chair, and he couldn't leave his position leaning over Stiles. The caramel from Stiles' eyes was coating Derek's brain like the flavor of his earlier coffee had coated his tongue, and he was taken aback by how bright and clear they were.

"Your?" Stiles prompted, and he sounded almost as stunned as Derek felt.

Closing his own eyes, Derek cleared his throat and forced himself to take two steps away from the chair. The movement caused Stiles to spin slightly, but with his feet now on the floor, the singer easily stopped himself.

"My uncle, Peter Hale, tends to hold grudges. He's very obsessed with the Argents and our rivalry. When he's focused, he's one of the best security officers you'll ever meet, but Argents distract him too much, so he wasn't invited," Derek explained and turned away.

In his chest, it felt like someone had beaten his heart with a hammer, and he had to concentrate on breathing normally so Stiles wouldn't take notice. This feeling… it was awful. Why did looking into Stiles' eyes cause his chest to feel so tight?

"Probably for the best. Wouldn't want him unscrewing stage lights over her head," Stiles said jokingly and suddenly Derek was able to breathe freely again.

With a small chuckle, he turned back to face Stiles again. "You need more things to tease me about. That joke is getting worn out."

"That joke is five days old," Stiles reminded. "But I can tease you about the reporter instead, if you'd like. How about – Probably a good thing your uncle didn't come. He might have made sex eyes at Allison for ten seconds and caused her to fall off stage. Then the Argents would be _really_ pissed they didn't get this contract."

Although Stiles was smiling, Derek was not. For one thing, his uncle being a creepy almost-pedophile as he wooed Allison Argent was scarily close to everything Derek imagined his uncle doing if he ever showed up here. But for a far more important second thing, Stiles was insulting him.

"Why do you care so much who I date?" Derek asked, crossing his arms and setting a stern stare on those brilliant caramel eyes.

Something clogged Stiles' throat for a moment before he stuttered out. "Date? You just met her. You're dating her? Already?"

"Yes," Derek grunted out, although he wasn't sure if one coffee meet up would constitute as he and Jennifer dating. Should he ask her about that? Or could he just assume from her flirty talk and her asking him out the first time that they were officially dating now? "Now what's your problem?"

"Nothing." But it obviously bothered Stiles. He pursed his lips together and returned Derek's glare. "I just didn't realize you were such a romantic. Just a warning – sometimes people who are too good to be true, actually are. Watch yourself."

"Thanks, but I think I can handle my own love life," Derek growled out and headed for the door. "Your concern about Allison is appreciated, but the family rivalry won't affect business. I'll see you at rehearsal."

"Wai-"

But Derek was out the door and cutting Stiles off with a firm slam of the wood. What a brat. Okay, so Stiles was barely legal, just old enough to have those five glasses of champagne, but that didn't give him justification for insensitively butting into Derek's personal life over and over again.

First it was making fun of his zeroes. Now he was calling Derek a bad judge of character and a hopeless romantic. Derek was trying so hard to not hold it all against Stiles, but if he kept this shit up, Derek was going to reach his breaking point and ask to be removed to another assignment. Seriously. Fuck this kid.

And yet, all the way back to the security room, Derek kept feeling that strange numbness that had overcome him when he stared into Stiles' eyes. Was this a sign like Jennifer's tingles? Was it possible he and Stiles were never meant to get along? Or maybe… No.

No, Derek was a one love kind of guy. He didn't have two soul mates. Besides, his reactions to being with either of them were completely different. They were not the same at all, and Jennifer's were far more pleasant.

* * *

><p>Preview, Chapter 6:<p>

Derek's relationship with Jennifer is hard to define, but it's way easier than his relationship with Stiles. Scott is sure Stiles actually wants to be friends with Derek, but Derek isn't so sure, and figuring it out only becomes more of a challenge after an intense private meeting with Stiles after the concert.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

So maybe this whole soul mate thing wasn't as crystal clear as Derek had expected it to be.

As he stood off stage before the concert, he watched Stiles bounce up and down, a ball of nerves, and drink half a bottle of water. Without a doubt, he found Stiles entrancing, and after the whole numb shock incident from earlier that day, he couldn't stop noticing the singer. It was even worse than usual.

The way his throat bobbed as he drank, the shake of his hands as he bounced, the way he shook his right arm more than his left and kept glancing at Derek whenever he did, and the roll of his shoulders to release tension – everything was illuminated like a garish neon sign before Derek's eyes, and he was unable to focus on anything else.

The two of them were ten feet apart, but Derek felt like he could reach out and find Stiles within his grasp in an instant. This wasn't normal, and he really wanted to ask someone about it, if only he could look away.

You're a security guard, he reminded himself. You have a job to do.

With nothing short of a godly amount of effort, Derek forced himself to scan the catwalk and the people in the area. He recognized each and every one of them, and nothing seemed tampered with. Security was doubled, covering all available entrances, so nothing should go wrong tonight, but his chest still felt tight with worry, and he couldn't place why.

"Derek!" He heard Jennifer but didn't see her. When he turned, Jordan was holding her back from coming into the area, but she was waving at Derek to have her let through.

A quick glance at Stiles proved the singer had also turned to look at the speaker, but his eyes found Derek's almost at the same time Derek's found his, and then they both looked away instantly. Cursing himself and his hormones, Derek did his best to push Stiles out of his mind and waved for Jordan to let Jennifer come over to him.

She made the distance in rapid steps, her heels clicking daintily on the thick floor. The occasional clicking of Lydia's heels on the other side of the backstage area was completely different, and Derek wasn't surprised he could tell the difference.

Without warning, Jennifer wrapped her arms around Derek and squeezed him tightly but briefly. "Good luck with the concert," she said.

"You should probably be saying that to the performers, actually," he pointed out and motioned half-heartedly at Allison, who was preparing to go on. The crowd was jabbering loudly, just out of view, and she seemed determinedly calm. Having Lydia standing there, muttering things to her, probably helped. Derek imagined it was a badass pep talk.

"Okay, but it's your show too. Anyway, I thought maybe we could meet up tomorrow… or at least talk on the phone? And then you could give me all the best behind-the-scenes details. Although, nothing that will get you fired. I don't want to ruin your career. That's one of the things I like about you." And she tugged gently on the collar of his jacket like a period to her statement.

The weird butterflies were back in Derek's stomach, and he didn't know what to do about them. Jennifer was standing so close, her perfume in his nose, and she looked so good in her casual professional outfit with the short skirt and the red red lips. Without waiting to hear what the niggling in the back of his mind was trying to tell him, Derek leaned forward and kissed her.

It could have been a bad move. They'd only seen each other for coffee, after all. However, she responded enthusiastically. Her arms went around his neck and when the kiss ended, she pulled him tight against her. Everywhere her skin touched his, he felt warm tingles, and it was such a pleasant feeling, especially next to the inability to breathe he got around Stiles earlier. So he kissed her again, just to feel those tingle on his lips too.

"I'll call you tomorrow," he promised and earned a foxy smile in return.

"I look forward to it," she said and then turned and walked away much slower than she'd approached.

Jordan gave Derek a funny look just before he led her out, and Derek didn't really understand why, but before he could even think about asking, the alert was given. Showtime in two minutes. Allison adjusted her jacket and Lydia gave her a big hug, and then Natalie Martin was there, ready to give the sign to go on.

Allison's opening act would last for half an hour, meaning Stiles wouldn't go on for at least another forty-five minutes. But already he looked tired and sweaty.

With a frown, Derek walked over to him but refrained from touching him. "Are you alright?" he asked.

Stiles started to nod, but a sudden pain made him freeze and he squinted his eyes. "Call Scott… Please."

Derek touched his earpiece and grabbed his walkie. Very calmly, he said, "If anyone is near Scott McCall, could you please send him to the side stage."

A local officer copied, and Derek nodded. Relief went through Stiles like a wave, but worry went through Derek. Scott said Stiles' condition wouldn't get in the way of work, so why was it happening now – right before a concert?

Allison went on stage and the crowd roared to life before she did so much as wave, and Lydia perched herself just out of view, watching everything like a hawk ready to strike. With her around, Allison didn't even need security.

A hiss from Stiles brought Derek back to what was happening right in front of him, and when he looked, Stiles was pressing a hand into his chest and his right arm was tight against his side. Despite the concern on his face, anyone that could only see his back would suspect little. He still bounced like before, but to Derek it now looked like someone trying to let off excess tension from pain and not merely anxiety.

It took less than two minutes of Allison's performance for Scott to show up. He took one look at Derek standing less than a foot from Stiles and his face turned to stone. One stern look from Derek, however, had him trying to look downright cheery instead.

"Hey, you wanted to see me?" he asked as he approached and put a hand on Stiles' shoulder.

"Did you bring one?" Stiles asked quietly and pulled his hand from his chest.

Wordlessly, Scott dropped one of the smaller pills into Stiles' hand. Stiles put it between his teeth and then swallowed it with a chug of water without complaint. A few panting breaths later, and all the tension drained from Stiles' body. It was a good thing that medication worked as fast as it did.

"All good?" Scott asked, and Stiles nodded.

"Sorry, bro. Didn't mean to drag you away. Were you with your mom or Kira?" And as usual, Stiles perked up and started acting as if nothing had happened, which only made Derek frown deeper.

"Both actually, but Mom should be coming over pretty soon to give you one last pep-talk before the show. Not that you need it." And Scott pat his friend heartily on the back. "You're gonna kill it out there."

As long as no actual killing went on, Derek was totally behind that statement. He'd actually enjoyed the stadium concert the other day. It had gone so well, he'd actually been worried about it. The whole way back to the hotel, he kept thinking the bus would flip or Stiles would trip and break his leg on the stairs.

"Right, well go back to your ladies, and hey, take Loved-Up with you. He's hovering," Stiles said and motioned to Derek.

"Loved-Up?" Scott asked, brow knit, and Stiles must have given him an interesting look in reply, because the assistant stage manager quickly let it go. "Alright. Come on, Derek."

He started to leave, but Derek didn't. Instead, he grabbed Stiles gently by the upper arm and dared himself to look straight into those confused, caramel eyes.

"Take it easy," Derek said, voice low. "No one can save you from yourself. Not even me. Especially when you act like nothing's wrong."

The numb feeling was spreading through his chest, and Derek knew that if he stayed there much longer, he would find trouble breaking away, but he waited for Stiles' response regardless. Stiles swallowed thickly and pressed his lips into a thin line.

"I'm fine," he said quietly. "Now go. I don't need you watching over me like I'm going to break."

"But are you going to break?" Derek asked, intensely serious.

Now Stiles' eyes narrowed and he barely shook his head. "See? This is why I didn't want anyone to know." He shook Derek off and looked away, breaking the moment. "Get out of here, Derek."

And though it was his job to stand on the side stage, Derek obeyed. With an easy call on the radio, Jordan took his place and a local took up guard at the entrance. Several paces ahead, Scott waited for him, but once Derek caught up, he wasted no time in exiting the area.

The booming from Allison's music could be heard throughout the building, but the actual words and treble notes were severely muffled. As they passed into this muted part of the area, Scott sighed.

"Stiles actually likes you, did you know?" he said, linking his hands behind his head.

"What?" Derek almost stopped walking but then doubled his steps to catch up.

"I know, I know. He just kicked you out from backstage, and yeah he tells me you guys fight all the time – in fact he'll take any chance he can get to rant about your complete lack of social skills, but that's special. Stiles doesn't talk about anyone the way he rants about you – good or bad. And he sent me to keep you company during the signing event, and like… I don't know. I think he wants to be friends," Scott explained.

Another few steps had them stopping in front of Stiles' prep room. Typically he'd still be in there, but not tonight. Melissa and Kira probably were, though.

"Friends," Derek muttered and thought about the numb feeling still receding from his body. "Friends could be… nice."

Scott turned on his heel to face Derek, but he didn't speak. His expression was confused, his brow knit and his lips a little tighter and his head tilted slightly to his right. Perhaps he was wondering if Derek didn't want to be friends with Stiles and then why that would be.

He couldn't possibly know what Derek was really thinking, because Derek was thinking about Jennifer's red, red lips, and how he'd kissed them, but when he imagined pulling back, it was from Stiles' thin lips. He was thinking about the break up album, and wondering if Stiles used to have someone special, the way Derek had, and if that was why he was so satirical.

"Stiles-," Scott began and then hesitated. He dropped his arms to his sides and frowned. "Stiles' opinion of his security guards is everything in whether they get hired long-term or not," he said. "Most groups don't make it past two shows, and no one has made it longer than half a tour in five years. After your actually horrible first impression, Stiles told us he didn't want anyone else but you guys. We tried to talk him out of it, but he wouldn't budge."

The beat of Derek's heart matched the upbeat rhythm from the concert.

"Don't you get it? He's the only reason you're here. He's never done that before… I just thought you should know how rare it is for Stiles to really want to be around someone these days… and I hope you appreciate it." Scott turned for the door and shrugged. "You can go do something else, if you want. We don't actually need you in here."

But Derek wasn't done. He took a step forward, catching Scott's attention, and squared his shoulders. "What happened five years ago?" he asked.

Five years ago, Stiles' mother passed away. Five years ago, John Stilinski went into rehab. Five years ago-

"What happened eight years ago?" Scott countered. "With you, I mean."

The numbness in Derek's chest now had nothing to do with Stiles. He pressed his lips thinly together. "What are you talking about?"

"What, you think we didn't do a little background digging before we hired you?" Scott asked. "Eight years ago, your uncle is on a job and you're there to learn the ropes. Afterward, your name doesn't appear on any work record for two years. So what happened?"

"That's none of your business," Derek bit out, brow creased and eyes hard.

"Exactly." And Scott was so calm that it almost shook the scowl right off Derek's face. "We all have personal things we don't want people to know. So back off and stop digging."

Before more could be said, Scott opened the door and left the hall. For a moment, Derek didn't know what to think, where to go, and then he was turning and walking back toward the stage.

Scott was right, and the ice in Derek's chest was proof of that. Derek wouldn't want someone poking his past with sticks, so he should stop poking Stiles'. It was only fair. Derek didn't want to talk about eight years ago. He didn't want to think about it, much less let someone else know about it, so he shouldn't expect Stiles, or anyone else on the tour, to just spill their guts about the hardest time in Stiles' life.

But he still wanted to know. He wanted to know so badly that his body kept tensing with pent up energy, and he had nowhere to release it. Why? Why couldn't he just let it go? He wanted to let it go.

Backstage was out of the question even though Allison would be leaving the stage now and Stiles would be too distracted with preparing to take any notice of Derek. Instead, Derek wandered into the audience area and walked the edges. Everyone was thrumming with energy and excitement and it just made Derek feel all the more twitchy.

He needed… He needed… What did he need? What did he want?

Jennifer spotted him from her seat on the left side of the stage and waved him over. Moving with more urgency than the situation called for, Derek pushed past innocent concert goers until he was standing almost too close to Jennifer.

"Derek, I thought you were-"

But he cut her off, cupping her face and kissing her hard. She was shocked, but she didn't protest, placing a hand on the back of his neck and pulling him closer. Derek kissed her like he was dying and would never see her again, and the intensity sucked the tension from his shoulders just enough that he could function again.

"Wow," Jennifer gasped when they parted.

But Derek was looking past her now, up onto the stage. Stiles was in the darkness, just in view from their spot, and he was staring right at them. The two men locked gazes, and a new tension filled Derek's bones. He couldn't read Stiles' expression, but he knew what his body was feeling… and it was a feeling he wasn't allowed to have.

"Wow," Jennifer said again, still breathless, and caressed his cheek. He looked down at her, at how beautiful she was, and focused on that warm tingling that originated from her fingertips.

Knowing Stiles had seen him kissing Jennifer made Derek feel… surprisingly possessive. It made no sense, but he felt like he was somehow daring Stiles to prove himself right about Derek and Jennifer's relationship. He wanted Stiles to tease him and pester him and ask about the relationship.

He wanted Stiles to get jealous.

Which was ridiculous because it wasn't like they were seeing each other, and damn it, usually he could forget about Stiles when he was with Jennifer.

Trying to push the singer from his mind, he kissed the reporter again, gentler this time, and she sighed at the end of it. "A girl could get used to this," she warned blissfully and rested her head against Derek's.

"Good," Derek grunted and forced himself to imagine spoiling her with random kisses like these. It worked to get his mind off Stiles… at least until the music started and even Jennifer's attention was on the stage.

Stiles sang with an energy Derek hadn't seen at the stadium concert, and maybe he was imagining it, but Stiles seemed to look at Derek a lot between songs. Or maybe 'look' was the wrong word. Glare. That was a better word. Stiles seemed positively mad whenever he spotted Derek standing by Jennifer, and in that moment nothing could make Derek happier.

* * *

><p>After the concert, Jennifer and Derek made plans to have a coffee date over Skype the next morning, since Derek would be out of town and Jennifer wouldn't be joining up with the tour again for the next two shows.<p>

No dangerous shenanigans happened during the concert or the clean-up process, but there was some trouble with trying to leave. Someone had slashed all four tires on the main tour bus while it was left to its own devices during the show.

"What now?" Scott asked as they all stood around, staring at it. They'd considered just taking Allison's bus for the time being, but the same issue had happened to hers too.

With a sigh, Melissa pulled out her phone. "John's still in the area with his personal car. Nothing we can do but go buy some new tires or call a tow-truck to do it for us." Then her call connected and she was explaining the situation to Mr. Stilinski.

Laura ran a hand through her hair and groaned, and beside her, Lydia let out an angry huff.

"I can't believe this. I know this one isn't the security team's fault, exactly, but who the hell is doing this? Sabotaging the busses? I just-" And there was her exasperated groan.

A gentle hand was set on her shoulder, and Allison chuckled. "Calm down, Lydia. It's nothing an hour won't fix. We're not behind schedule or anything."

"It's the principle of the matter, Allison," Lydia argued, but she did seem to calm down regardless.

A soft clearing of the throat drew Derek's attention from the girls and he saw Stiles standing by the building's back door. He still looked upset when he stared at Derek, but it wasn't the anger from on stage.

"Alright, everyone," Melissa called out after she hung up her phone. "Myself, Jordan Parrish, Scott, and Laura Hale will be going to the tire store with John Stilinski to pick up some fresh tires. The rest of you, please go back inside and rest until we get this sorted out."

Lydia's mom was left in charge until Melissa got back, which made the woman perk up like a complimented peacock and resemble her daughter even more. People started shuffling inside, except those whose names had been called out, and Derek debated asking why she asked for Laura and not him… except that Stiles was still hovering by the door and letting everyone go inside before him, and it seemed increasingly apparent that he was waiting for Derek.

When almost everyone else had filed inside, Derek joined the flow of people and reentered the building. He was shortly followed by Stiles, who covertly motioned for Derek to follow him as he broke off from the others and headed for his ex-prep room.

No one else came down this hall, preferring instead to go sit in the main lobby where there were plenty of chairs and space. Still, Stiles looked around for others before letting Derek into the room and then following behind him. The door shut and then the lock clicked into place, causing Derek's stomach to coil.

"Stiles, what-" But he didn't get to finish.

"It makes no sense," Stiles interrupted, body thrumming with energy and eyes on the ground. "I'm- Ugh you're so irritating!"

"Me?" Derek asked, raising an eyebrow. Part of him worried the stress and tension evident in Stiles at this moment would trigger his condition, but part of him didn't care. He was angry at Stiles just the way Stiles seemed angry at him.

"You!" Stiles exclaimed, eyes darting up from the floor to pin Derek in place. "You!"

And then he was rushing Derek, shoving him against the wall opposite the door. Derek raised his hands to detain the singer if he continued to assault him, but then Stiles was pressed against him, hands on either side of Derek's face, and head so close to Derek's that their surprised breaths mingled.

Stiles' caramel eyes were just far enough away that Derek could still see them clearly, and that numb feeling spread rapidly from his chest at their proximity. Luckily, Stiles seemed to be having a similar problem, because his breathing was shallow, like Derek's.

"I hate you so much," Stiles murmured, and it held no heat. "You're an insensitive grouch."

"And you're a disrespectful, spoiled child," Derek grunted back. One of his hands found its way to Stiles' back, drawn their like a magnet, and moved slowly up to the singer's shoulder blades.

As soon as Derek's fingers reached Stiles' shoulders, the singer leaned forward, as though Derek had pushed him, and pressed his lips to Derek's. All the anger in Derek was quickly proven to be anything but anger as he instantly slid his eyes shut and kissed back. It felt like lava was pulsing through his heart instead of blood and electricity ran through Stiles'. Stiles was pulling on the back of Derek's head and Derek was gripping hard to Stiles' shoulders and they were kissing!

One kiss, two kisses, three- Stiles nipped at Derek's lower lip and Derek jolted back to his senses, pushing the younger man away several inches.

"Stiles," he grunted.

"I don't know, okay?" Stiles said, irritated. "I just- I saw you kissing her and I got so angry. But when I saw you alone again, I just- It's just- I don't want you to date her."

"But I am dating her," Derek reminded. "And you kissed me."

"And you kissed me too," Stiles pointed out. "And you're holding my shoulders so tight I'm gonna bruise. What's your point?"

"I'm taken." And Derek forced himself to release Stiles' shoulders. "And we hate each other." He shifted and moved out from between Stiles and the wall, putting space where it needed to be if he was going to keep his head.

"Obviously not. I don't know about you, but I don't make out with people I actually hate." Stiles started to cross his arms but then twitched and put his hands on his hips instead. "Maybe we just really like each other."

"You can hate someone and still be physically attracted to them," Derek argued, running a hand through his hair.

How had this happened? Not five minutes prior, he'd wanted to throw Stiles against a wall and… And then nothing. He'd just wanted to push Stiles against the wall. He hadn't thought past that part. Obviously Stiles had. And maybe Derek was lying. Maybe he'd thought past that too. But he couldn't. This wasn't professional. And it wasn't moral. He was dating Jennifer, wasn't he?

"So go back to Jennifer then," Stiles said, and his voice was all hard lines. "But our relationship isn't normal either. You kissed me back. Don't think I'm going to pretend this never happened."

"Why not? It's how you handle everything else." And he knew the words were too harsh as soon as they left his mouth, but he couldn't pull them back.

Stiles frowned and took a deep breath. "Wow, dude. Just wow." He walked to the door and unlocked it. "Maybe I was wrong. Maybe you are just a grumpy asshole, and maybe I am just a spoiled brat, cause wow, I'm not attracted to you at all right now."

He opened the door and waited, a silent order for Derek to leave. For a moment, Derek was rooted to his spot, wanting to say something but knowing it would come out harsh and would only make things worse. Then he let out a heavy breath and slowly left the room, staring at Stiles until he was out of the room and the door was shut in his face. Shut, he noticed, and not slammed.

As soon as he was alone, he cursed. What the hell was wrong with him? And what the hell was all that?

* * *

><p>Preview, Chapter 7:<p>

Laura maybe, kind of, sort of doesn't approve of Jennifer. Stiles does a beautiful job of avoiding Derek, but that doesn't stop Derek thinking about him all the time.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Soul mates were confusing. Derek hated his numbers. Screw that cosmic atmosphere.

Derek had his coffee date with Jennifer while they rode to the next city, because his phone was a portable wifi spot and he was awesome like that. The concert was their main topic, which made it even harder for Derek to not think about Stiles, but that was all Jennifer wanted to hear about. How did Stiles prep for a concert? What kind of mishaps could happen on stage? Was it true someone sabotaged the lights at his first concert?

"Where did you hear that?" Derek asked.

"It's all over the internet. I know the official story is equipment failure, but is that the truth?" Wow did she sound like a reporter.

"We have no hard evidence of foul play," Derek lied, but she smirked, which made Derek sure that she didn't believe him at all.

"And what happened last night?" she asked.

Images of Stiles so close Derek could smell him flashed in his mind, but he pushed them away. That's not what she meant. No one knew about that.

"One of the busses had a flat tire. There were no major delays," Derek said, again lying, but this time she seemed more put-out than smug, so he figured he'd won that round.

"Well that's no fun to write about. I'll have to find a different topic." Jennifer sipped tea this morning instead of coffee. She said she only drank tea when at home because no one ever served the kind she liked, but she could buy the tea bags herself and do it right.

"Hang on. Are you just using me for article ideas?" Derek asked, frowning over his mug. Beside him, but just far away enough to be out of the camera's view, Laura gave an indignant look at the computer, expressing quite beautifully what Derek was feeling.

"Of course not," Jennifer assured. "That's just a perk. Honestly, I just love listening to you talk. You just seem more open when you talk about Stiles and the concert. That's all. I like it when you're open with me."

While the sentiment was touching and calmed his agitation, Jennifer was totally misguided. Derek wasn't being open about Stiles at all. In fact, he was being entirely closed off about the younger man. Bare details, that's all she was getting.

Seriously, there was not a single person Derek trusted enough to discuss last night with. Not one soul.

Soul. Soul mate.

Damn it. He really couldn't stop thinking about it.

"Well then, on a different note – how come you never take off that bracelet?" Derek asked and motioned to Jennifer's wrist despite being just a 2D computer image to her.

With a shrug, she said, "I don't like my numbers and I don't want to be judged by them. When I find true happiness, I want to find it because I found it, not because the universe told it to be so and I blindly followed its lead." She set down her tea. "My soul mate will be mine by choice, not design. Does that bother you?"

"Should it?" It did, truth be told, but he didn't want to tell her that. It was an honorable thought, a perfectly good stance, but since Derek was partially sure she was his soul mate, he'd rather be sure of it and test it out. If she wasn't potentially _his_ soul mate, he wouldn't care at all… but she was and so he did. Surely his soul mate would understand that and reveal their wrist, right? Should he push the idea?

"No, I suppose not." Jennifer smiled and then her eyes flickered down to the clock on her screen. "Oh, sorry. I've got to run. There's a meeting at work today that I'm presenting at. Wish me luck."

"Good luck."

And the call ended.

"I think she loves you and it makes me slightly ill," Laura admitted. "I don't like her."

"What if she's my soul mate?" Derek asked, closing the computer and setting it aside.

"Then the universe is weird, but I'm so glad she's not mine."

It was a good thing neither of them was driving, because Derek turned to face her on the small couch of the second bus and she instantly mirrored the action. Both Hales kept their eyes stony and their expressions impassable.

"What is your problem with Jennifer?" Derek asked with a grunt. After all Laura's talk about wanting Derek to find happiness, why was she acting like this?

"I can't tell if she actually likes you or just wants to sleep with you," Laura said with a wild motion to the abandoned laptop.

"What if it's both? And what's so wrong with that?" Someone wanted to be physical with him. He hadn't missed those signs radiating off Jennifer. But so what? Should he not want that? Wouldn't his soul mate want that? Wouldn't his soul mate be thinking about kissing him and touching him and keeping him for themselves?

'I saw you kissing her and I got so angry.'

He glared at his sister, but he wasn't seeing her.

"What if it's not both!?" Laura shouted and stood. The bus hit a tiny bump and she almost toppled forward, but Derek instantly reached up to steady her, both of their glares falling away. As soon as she had her footing again, Laura returned to her seat. "I just don't want you to invest everything in someone who might not be in it for the same reason you are."

"She could be my soul mate. I met her within the time limit and she asked me on a date," Derek pointed out calmly. "Even if she turns out wrong, wouldn't it be wrong to ignore the possibility?"

With a deep frown, Laura conceded with a nod. Something more was on her tongue, but she knit her brow and then shook it away. "She's just not what I expected for you, I suppose. You've never been overtly sexual and she's… Sorry, I'll stop. And if she is your soul mate, I'm going to be supportive. You're my brother and I'm being insensitive. I'm sorry."

"Apology accepted," Derek said.

There was a weighty silence afterward where Derek entertained the idea that he was wrong, that Jennifer wasn't his soul mate and he'd read the signs wrong. But then he just pictured a door closing in his face and he closed his eyes, sighing angrily.

"And if she isn't my soul mate, I expect you to be supportive in getting a restraining order or whatever I need to get out of it," he said, trying to joke.

Laura laughed sourly and leaned against him, her head on his shoulder. Her legs lifted onto the couch and she put her hand on Derek's knee, where he quickly took it up in his own. And that's how they sat for several minutes, just enjoying the contact.

"I love you," Laura finally murmured.

"I love you too."

He knew, no matter what happened with Jennifer, Laura would be on his side. And with Stiles… Laura really admired Stiles. What would she do if she found out about what had happened between them? What if Derek somehow hurt Stiles? He knew eventually she would just smack him upside the head and forgive him, but would she be on his side? Did Derek want her to be?

'I hate you so much.'

But it hadn't sounded like hate. It sounded empty. Derek remembered the desperate way Stiles had kissed him and sighed. He remembered the way all that tension in his chest had melted away under Stiles' lips. He couldn't stop thinking about every detail of their encounter, over and over, like a messed up version of ptsd.

What if he'd chosen Jennifer and he was wrong? What if he was right? What was he supposed to do now?

* * *

><p>There was no show that night, but there was an interview and a photo shoot. As soon as Derek stepped on site, he saw Stiles. The singer was perched on a sidewalk barrier, notebook balanced on his knee, pen in hand. Thankfully, he wasn't in black today, or Derek really wouldn't have been able to concentrate. He looked too good in black. Instead, Stiles wore a grey cotton jacket with a hood, a white t-shirt with a Captain America shield on it, old jeans, and red converse. Obviously not what he'd wear during the shoot.<p>

A young black man walked up to him and Stiles raised his eyes from the paper in front of him. On the way to looking at his new companion, Stiles spotted Derek and frowned. Derek was too far away to hear the conversation, but Stiles jumped up from his seat and quickly walked away with the black man, speaking quickly.

"What's up?" Derek asked, catching Scott's eye before nodding in the direction of the retreating teens.

After a brief glance in Stiles' direction, Scott frowned. "That's Boyd. He helps Stiles write songs, smoothes things out, you know?"

"And?" Derek pressed, following the assistant stage manager/crew liaison as he tried to walk away.

"And Stiles is having trouble coming up with anything new, and he's supposed to start recording in a week, so he's a little stressed out about it," Scott said with an aggravated sigh.

Not knowing what to respond with, Derek just followed Scott silently. He knew singers had busy schedules. This wasn't his first rodeo, after all. Still, perhaps the crammed schedule was keeping Stiles from being able to focus on lyrics. He had a commercial to shoot on the weekend and a concert the following night and then another meet and greet and then Derek didn't even know because he figured Laura would fill him in as time went on, but Stiles probably had the whole thing memorized.

Just outside of a door marked 'wardrobe', Scott stopped and finally faced Derek. "You know you can't just follow me around because Stiles is mad at you," he said.

"What did you say?" Derek asked, brow knitting. Did Scott know? Had Stiles told him? They were best friends, right? So, of course, why wouldn't he tell Scott?

With a shrug, Scott motioned in annoyance behind Derek, back where Stiles had been. "He asked me this morning if it was too late to end your contract. I don't know."

"Wha-" All the air felt like it had been sucked out of Derek's lungs. Was his family going to suffer because of his tension with Stiles?

"Don't have a heart attack. I convinced him he was being stupid and irrational, but dude, what the hell? Yesterday you two had a tiny fight and now he wants to fire you? What did you do?"

"What did _I_ do?" Derek growled, his confusion melting into anger. "Why do you assume I did something?"

"Because Stiles-!" Scott started, determination loud in his voice, but then he faltered and pressed his lips together. After a muffled moment where he struggled for words, Scott frowned again. "No, actually, you could be right. I mean, I did just tell you yesterday Stiles is kind of hard to work with sometimes. You look like a serial killer, but Stiles is-…. Yeah, sorry."

"Right."

At the rate he was moving, Derek would have the whole crew against him by the end of the tour. Fantastic, especially considering his soul mate was most likely among the tour members.

Wait. He was still expecting Jennifer to be his soul mate. Great. Now he was confusing himself.

"Excuse me. I need to go find my team," Derek grunted and turned away from the assistant stage manager.

"Derek, hold up," Scott called to him, and Derek hesitated after only two steps. "I'll talk to Stiles – see what's going on. Okay?"

"Don't go out of your way for my sake." Despite the words, Derek kind of hoped Scott followed through, and while he also hoped Stiles wouldn't give his best friend all the details, a reason why he was holding it against Derek or how Derek could fix it would be extremely helpful.

* * *

><p>Derek wasn't present for the interview, opting to send Jordan instead, but that didn't mean he got the day off either. Allison and her team were around, also prepping for the photo shoot, and Lydia made it very clear that she didn't approve of Derek's executive decision.<p>

"Lydia, you seem particularly tense," Laura noted before glancing down at the tablet she held in her hand and tapping something on the screen. Derek knew she was looking over schematics of the arena they would be playing at two days from then and absentmindedly debated doing the same thing. He was usually the first one to look over such files.

"Well someone decided to send away my good luck charm," Lydia replied, not trying to hide the fact that she was talking about Derek. Her eyes even landed on him as she spoke before she pursed her lips and turned away.

"I thought I was your good luck charm," Allison piped up from where she sat getting her hair done.

A sassy smile spread across Lydia's lips then. "Of course you are," she said, and Derek couldn't tell if she was being sarcastic or not. "You're my best friend and I love you. But Jordan-"

Allison laughed. "I know, Lydia. I know." To Derek's ears, even Allison's laugh was quiet in comparison to Lydia. "But don't take it out on Derek. He's just doing his job."

"Well next time he needs to do it differently," Lydia said, turning her faux smile on Derek.

"Duly noted," Derek grumbled back and checked his phone. No texts. Good.

"Waiting for a call?" Allison asked as her bangs were pulled back and she spotted him in the mirror.

Slipping his phone into his pocket, Derek met her eyes in the mirror. "No. Why?"

"You keep checking your phone," she said, motioning a little but trying to keep still.

Lydia almost smirked as she asked, "Girlfriend problems?"

Doing his best not to take it personally, Derek said, "No. She texted me this morning. She's fine." He knew she was just angry about him splitting Jordan and her up, but he didn't trust anyone else like he trusted Jordan and if he couldn't watch Stiles personally, he'd prefer Jordan do it… or Laura, but she'd wanted to be here.

"Family problems?" Allison asked, a sympathetic tone in her voice. She knew all about disapproving parents and relatives, having chosen to leave the family business.

"No. Mom's given us a wide berth on this one," Laura jumped in, but her tone was curious. "So not girlfriend. Not Mom. So then is it St-"

"Hello?"

A new face peeked around the door, followed quickly by a tiny knock. Wrong order, but the guy got points for effort. Curly light brown hair sat unkempt over a nervous face.

"You're just in time, Lahey," the hairdresser, Tara, said in greeting. "She's ready for you."

The new guy scurried into the room and unpacked a case of make-up equipment on an open stretch of table beside Allison. In a smooth motion unexpected from his skiddish demeanor, he pulled out a set of liquid bases and held them up by Allison's cheek.

"You missed the meeting, so we're trying for a white tone first, but Stiles is in red, so you can play with that too," Tara explained.

"Got it," Lahey replied and began applying a base tone in gentle dabbing motions with a brush.

His entrance brought about a silence among the other four. Gossip they didn't mind, but it seemed they each had a boundary around new people. Tara, they'd all met her and been around her before, but the new kid blending cream into Allison's cheekbones? No one knew him.

Of course Allison would be the one to broach the silence and offer an olive branch to the kid. He looked nervous under the weight of the silence despite the intensity with which he worked. As he moved away to switch out make-up, Allison smiled at him.

"So what was your name?" she asked.

"Uh, Isaac," he said and smiled back. He was kinda cute when he did that. "Lahey's my family name."

"Oh. Hi, Isaac. I'm Allison." And she held her hand out to shake.

At first, Isaac seemed confused, but eventually he took her hand. They shook hands and then the rest of the group went around introducing themselves as well. After that, Isaac seemed to greatly relax, so Derek felt a little guilty about putting a tense frown back on the kid's face.

"Today's your first day? Who are you with?" Definitely not the Stilinski tour, but since Lydia and Allison hadn't known him, he wasn't with them either.

"Oh. Tara," Isaac motioned to the hairdresser, "pulled me in last minute. Some uh, family issues kept me from joining up at the start."

Looking up at the dark skinned hair dresser, Derek saw her giving him a slight warning look, like a protective mother lion. As they continued their staring contest, Tara proved to be a master, because not only did she raise one skeptical, testing eyebrow at him, but she did so while still curling Allison's hair. Finally, Derek looked away.

"Welcome to the team," he said, but by then Isaac was focused back on his task of turning Allison into a work of art.

The vibration in his pocket took Derek's mind away from anything going on in the room, including Allison striking up a conversation with her make-up artist. He did his best to calmly lift the phone out and up to eye level.

He had a message. From Jordan. His heart beat heavy in his chest and he clicked open the message, expecting another accident to have occurred or to see that Stiles had gone behind Scott's back and had them fired.

'Stiles says to remind you that he doesn't want to talk to you?' Jordan's message read.

Derek didn't laugh out loud, but there was probably a grin on his face, because Stiles was a child and Jordan was confused.

'Let him know the feeling is mutual,' Derek sent back and then wondered if talking through someone else counted as talking. If avoiding someone didn't entail not talking, he'd have asked Stiles for specifics on their new relationship status… and asked exactly what their status was.

After a minute had passed and Jordan hadn't responded, Derek put the phone away again. If he kept it out, he'd probably send more messages, and Stiles didn't want to talk. Which was fine. Because they had nothing to talk about. This was simply business.

Except he could remember the feeling of Stiles' back under his hands and, damn it, maybe he did want to talk about it.

* * *

><p>Preview Chapter 8:<p>

Derek's not imagining it. Jennifer knows more than she should about the tour, and something new and fishy comes up that might spell trouble later. Stiles and Derek might actually be making headway with their relationship. And then later turns out to be now as an electrical problem has Stiles on his way to the hospital!


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Two days later, Derek was about to explode. There was a show that night, so everyone was busy running around prepping and Stiles was doing sound checks and practice runs, and it was all fine and dandy, except Jennifer was upping her game and sending Derek a text every five minutes and of course all Derek could think about was Stiles and his safety.

It might have helped if Jennifer ever wanted to talk about anything but Stiles. Sure, she said her reasons for that topic before were because Derek 'opened up' when he spoke about Stiles, but that was a lie and the excuse was running so thin Derek could probably strain water through it.

Every time his phone went off, Laura gave him a disapproving look, and he understood. They had rules about phones on the job, and it was that phones were for emergencies only. Derek had told Jennifer, of course, but she didn't seem to know what she was doing… or if she did, she didn't seem to care.

Groaning, he pulled his phone out to look at the newest text and his wristband shifted up enough for him to see the edge of his double zeros.

"You alright?" Stiles speaking to him was a shock on its own. The singer had done a relatively good job of only speaking to Derek about work and even then he usually got someone else to do it. Jordan didn't seem to recognize that Stiles was using him as a mouthpiece yet, so that was good.

"Fine," Derek said and cleared his throat, trying not to sound upset. The last thing he wanted was for Stiles to think he was mad at him. "Done with practice?"

"Mostly, but we're taking a fifteen." The water in Stiles' bottle was red and Stiles shook it rapidly. "Hey so… what do security guards do between things? Like after we wrap this up but before the concert, what do you and Laura and whoever do?"

"We churn butter," Derek said, serious faced and no hint of a joke in his tone.

The bottle stopped moving and Stiles' mouth dropped open and- oh good it was closed again. Derek forced his eyes up from Stiles' lips and back to Stiles' eyes. Slow moving lava started building up in his arms no matter how much he tried to convince it not to. Stiles' eyes and Derek's blood stream seemed to have a pact made up, and Derek didn't know how to break it.

"Wow. Please tell me you're joking," Stiles said after a minute. "I mean, I assume you're joking, but we did have a fight the other day and you stopped talking to me so-"

"Actually, it was you who stopped talking to me," Derek clarified. His phone buzzed in his hand, but he didn't look down at it.

Frowning, Stiles' whole face pinched. "But- Hey, but you didn't try to talk to me either," he complained, and the bottle was moving again. "If you wanted to talk, you should've just said so."

"Right. Because being told you didn't want to talk was obviously an invitation to strike up a conversation." Buzz. Derek clenched his fingers around his phone and tried to ignore it. If Stiles thought he could make this whole mess out to be Derek's fault then he-

It wasn't Derek's fault. It wasn't.

"Yeah. Okay, I'll admit, maybe I should've dropped a few hints but-"

"Stiles," Derek warned, because the lava was spreading through his chest.

"Look I'm trying to ask if you're free to talk after this," Stiles finally admitted, and really Derek should tell him no. The lava in his blood wasn't getting any better, and it seemed determined to only grow more intense in between moments of catching sight of Stiles' eyes. Talking could only make things worse.

His phone buzzed again. "Fine," Derek grunted out harder than he meant to, but his phone was annoying him. "Sorry. I need to check my phone."

"Right." And Stiles finally opened his water and started to drink the weird koolaid or tea or whatever it was he had mixed in. "Girlfriend?"

"Girlfriend," Derek grunted and then hated how much it sounded like he regretted the word. "Sit down and rest. We'll talk after."

"We will," Stiles agreed and shuffled off to find a chair.

Derek waited until Stiles was firmly seated and Scott was standing by him, handing him some kind of snack bar, before he finally looked down at his phone. Jennifer's name was all over the preview screen, and Derek sighed as he opened her conversation.

There was a How are you? message and I miss you! and then she asked how things were on set, but it was her last message that really stood out.

"Has Stiles ever talked to you about his ex?" she asked.

After only a moment's hesitation, Derek hit the call button and raised the phone to his ear.

"Derek?" Jennifer answered with.

"What are you talking about?" Derek asked. Stiles didn't have an ex. He'd asked Laura specifically. She'd been certain.

"It's been circulating for awhile now. There's evidence that Stiles actually had a significant other a few years ago, and I just-," but Derek didn't let her finish.

"Am I just a source to you?" he asked, and he must have said it louder than he intended, because Stiles sat a little straighter in his chair… but he was much too far away to understand Derek's words.

"What? Why would you think that?" Jennifer defended, and Derek could imagine the way her nose would crinkle just a bit, because she always got that way when he started doubting their relationship.

"Because you're always asking about Stiles and the show and things you shouldn't know about. Because you're a reporter," Derek grunted.

"Whatever people have been telling you, Derek, you can't believe them." She sounded so sincere, so gentle. "They're just jealous that you might be finding The One."

"And have I?" Derek asked. He glanced over toward Scott and Stiles. Scott was kneeling in front of his friend and they were motioning over the stage, discussing something about the show. "This is the first time you've ever brought it up… Usually I do. I can't stop thinking about it."

"Me either." Jennifer took a deep breath. "Derek-"

"You're lying."

If Jennifer was like Derek, she wouldn't be able to discuss work and ask detailed questions about life on set with the Stilinski tour. She'd be bringing up soul mates in every other conversation – wondering what it was like for people who got engaged to the 'wrong' people who discovered their soul mates later. She'd send him texts at midnight asking if soul mates ever craved food because their soul mate was eating it. Derek knew she would, because those were the kinds of thoughts that woke him up in the middle of the night when he was suddenly craving yogurt… and he hated yogurt.

But she never did.

"Jennifer, what are you working on right now? Professionally or personally. What's the story?" Derek asked, trying to calm his voice.

"I-… I'm working on a piece about fame running in families. I figured Kardasians, Jacksons, Stilinskis, that sort of thing." She started to rant about it, making it sound very in depth and detailed, but it sounded empty too, like a college student trying to explain to their professor what their paper was about despite not having done the research for it yet.

"Stop." Derek ran a hand over his face. "Just stop. If you've been using me to get intel on Stiles, just admit to it. Don't make up an article that doesn't exist."

"Derek. Believe me. Whoever told you-"

"No one told me," Derek snapped too loudly and then ran an angry hand over his face to iron out the glare from his forehead. "Listen. I don't want to be mad at you. Maybe we should… take a break."

"You want to break up? Over a misunderstanding?" Jennifer asked.

"Yes." Being blunt had always been a strength of Derek's. "And if you were really my soul mate, you'd understand."

For a long moment, Derek thought Jennifer had hung up on him, and he pulled the phone away to check it was still clocking call time. When he put it back to his ear, she started talking again, her voice tight but verging on upset. He couldn't tell if that 'upset' was angry or sad, but it was there.

"Okay. I understand," she said. "You need time to trust me, and if leaving you alone gains that trust, I'll do it. So… Call me when you think you're ready for a serious relationship."

And then the line went silent again. Derek didn't need to check to know the call had ended. Slowly, he pulled the phone from his ear and slipped it into his pocket. His second relationship and he'd broken it off. Damn it. That was the right thing to do, right? He hadn't been imagining her obsession with news of bad things happening on set, right? Her silent disregard for how Derek was actually feeling? He hadn't been making it up. Even Laura…

He shouldn't doubt himself, but he did. He probably shouldn't feel bad, but he did that too.

"Copy Derek?" he heard over his ear piece and he cleared his throat before responding.

"Go for Derek."

"Meet me by the stage door." It was Jordan. "At your earliest convenience."

The wording was meant to suggest it wasn't urgent, but Derek knew Jordan, and that's not how Jordan asked you to come if it wasn't urgent. That was actually Jordan speak for 'get over here asap'. A voice over the speakers called Stiles back to the stage so they could work on getting the proper lighting prepped, and Derek caught the singer looking his way before they both turned and walked in opposite directions.

Jordan was by the exit door at the back of the building, door propped open and him squinting in the sun. Scott had said Derek should be a model, but he should be suggesting that career path to Jordan Parrish, honestly. The young security officer looked prepped and ready for camera as he leaned on the door jam, waiting for Derek.

"What's up?" Derek asked and Jordan quickly stood up straight.

"Take a look," he said.

One motion led Derek's eyes to the scratches around the lock on the door. Normally this would be cause for a security camera search, but in this case it just raised questions. The door was locked with a deadbolt and door lock. Just picking the lock wouldn't get you in. So why bother trying?

"That doesn't make any sense," Derek said with a grunt.

"Right?" Jordan nodded and then motioned just outside the door. "And this is questionable too." Outside the door was a pack of matches and a zippo with a wolf design etched into it. "Like… picking a lock and lighting matches with a lighter? What's the end game?"

"I'd rather not figure it out. We'll have someone watch the door for anymore attempts to break in. Stay here for a few minutes and I'll go find someone to relieve you. But let's keep this quiet. So far it doesn't look too dangerous, and we don't need to cause an already stressful situation to get worse," Derek said, thinking of the way Stiles couldn't breathe that first day and Scott's exclamation about stress.

"Of course. Why do you think I called you over the way I did?" Jordan asked and lifted his lips in a way that could almost be a smirk… if Jordan Parrish was the smirking kind.

After a friendly clap on the shoulder, Derek left the slightly younger man on his own and went to find a replacement for him. Jordan was too useful to be guarding the back door, which was only proven by the fact that he'd even found the problem to begin with.

He was almost back to the main stage when Laura's voice cut over the radio.

"Someone get a med kit to the stage, Now! We need burn ointment!"

Feeling his heart in his stomach, Derek took off at a run. As he got closer, he heard lots of people shouting, and then he saw two men putting out a small fire by the sound board. Twenty feet away, a small group of people had huddled around someone on the ground, and Derek knew who it was without seeing.

Gritting his teeth, Derek walked over to a table that used to be covered in water bottles for the crew but which now only held five. He snatched up two and walked quickly over to the group.

"Move!" he half shouted and several stagehands scattered from the scene. Stiles was propped up against Scott, clutching his right arm to his chest. For a split second, Derek thought Stiles' health condition had flared up, but then he saw the angry red burn on Stiles' right hand.

"Derek, did you bring a med kit?" Laura asked. She sounded frightened, and later he'd ask what had caused the situation that spooked her and injured Stiles and caused a damn fire at the sound board, but for now he had bigger problems.

"No. Give me your hand," Derek ordered, holding his own hand out.

"Dude, what?" Scott exclaimed, but Derek wasn't looking at Scott or at Laura.

His eyes were on Stiles' face, and though Stiles was shaking and biting his lip, he barely looked into Derek's eyes for more than two seconds before he was throwing his hand forward into Derek's. With his free hand, Derek opened a water bottle and then locked gazes with Stiles again.

"This is gonna sting at first," he warned.

"Oh my God, just do it," Stiles said and hissed at the end, because he was in pain and not because he was angry.

So Derek stopped hesitating and started pouring the water over Stiles' hand. The burn ran across the base of his fingers and between his thumb and forefinger, and while Stiles' hissing sounded bad, the color of the burn told Derek it wasn't serious. If Derek was right, there'd be no muscle damage or loss of movement.

"Did the microphone do this to you?" he asked, judging by the path of the burn. Then, as an afterthought, he turned to Laura and asked calmly, "Can you bring me the rest of the water?"

She nodded and left as Stiles nodded and said, "Y-Yeah. We were doing one last sound check and then everything went crazy high pitched. Like dog whissssss… Damn it. Like a dog whistle."

The first water bottle had run empty. Stiles tried to move his fingers, but it only made him wince and grunt. Derek glared at him while opening the second bottle, and Stiles gave a teasing smile in return. As soon as the water started rolling over his hand again, Stiles relaxed.

"We don't know what happened," Scott continued. "One second, everything was perfect. The next, the sound board short circuits and there's fire, and the microphone like… I don't know how else to explain it. It just blew."

He motioned toward the stage, where the remnants of Stiles' microphone lay under the bright lights. The base and the head were completely separated, and the base was cracked in four places. How in the hell-? Derek only stopped looking at it because Laura was back with the water.

"Thanks," he grunted and she just nodded as she opened the next one.

"The force knocked Stiles over," Scott finished.

"The force didn't do shit," Stiles argued gently and shifted to sit up on his own, keeping his hand as still as possible. "It was the shock."

"Yeah, well whatever it was, you're gonna have to go to the hospital," Derek said as he switched to take Laura's prepped bottle. The empty bottles were discarded carelessly beside him. When Stiles looked affronted, Derek was not moved. "Electrical burns can be bad news. You're not even supposed to cool them down before you see a doctor if it's too serious."

"And yet you're pouring water on mine," Stiles said, frowning.

"Yours isn't serious. But a trip to the hospital will get you the burn cream, bandages, and whatever else you'll need to get this healed quick. Can't imagine you'll want your hand to burn throughout the whole concert… under all those hot lights." And the look Derek gave Stiles then could only be called a challenge.

Barely a heartbeat passed before Stiles moved from frowning to full on pouting, and he turned his head away from Derek. "Fine. But if I gotta go to the hospital, then you gotta suffer with me. "

"What?" Derek really didn't like hospitals. Really really didn't-

"He's right, Derek," Laura said – the traitor. "Someone needs to go with him. You should go."

A local stage hand ran up then to offer a fully stocked first aid kit, but all Derek took from it was the gauze and bandages. Silently, he rolled up Stiles' hand, trying to figure a way out of going to sterile hell. When he was done, he looked up at Stiles, completely prepared to say he needed to help Jordan with an issue with the door, but Stiles' frown had turned disappointed, his eyebrows pulled slightly together, and Derek could only sigh.

"Fine," he agreed, and Laura called for someone to go get a car.

Fine was right. Not yes or of course, but fine. Fine, because Stiles looked like he really wanted Derek to go… and besides, he and Stiles had a date anyway. To talk, not to date.

Derek couldn't wait for his hormones to stop giving him migraines.

* * *

><p>The hospital was sterile and hellish, just as Derek remembered it. It didn't matter that the walls were half cream or there were pleasant paintings on the walls or that this hospital was thousands of miles from the last one Derek had been in. It was still hell and it was still the same.<p>

"You alright, dude?" Stiles asked, sitting in the exam room and waiting for the doctor.

They'd already been seen by the nurse, so all they really needed now was the doctor to write them the official prescription and maybe the nurse would come back and re-bandage the injury. Stiles was pretty calm, not even hissing anymore. Sometimes he twitched, so Derek knew he was still in pain, but he was generally normal.

"I'm fine," Derek grunted.

"You've sort of not been fine since we got in the car to come here," Stiles argued back. "Like wow, you must really hate hospitals."

"Yeah I really must." And he said it bluntly, trying to end the conversation, but it was so true, and judging by Stiles' face, he could tell.

Thankfully, before Stiles could question him about his distaste for health centers, the doctor walked in.

"You were lucky, Mr. Stilinski," he said, glancing down at the clipboard in his hand. "Electrical burns can be quite a serious matter. I see first aid was administered on site. Another lucky thing for you. Which of your crew knew how to tend a burn?"

"Him," Stiles said, pointing with his uninjured hand, and Derek's back straightened.

"See a lot of electrical burns, Mr…?" the doctor prompted.

"Hale. And my uncle once was involved in an incident. He got minor burns." And some people got worse, but he didn't voice that out loud.

"Good. You might be familiar with the long term treatment then. I'm prescribing an antibiotic ointment to prevent infection. Apply it twice a day with new bandages," the doctor said and signed off on a piece of paper on his clipboard.

He handed the prescription to Derek instead of Stiles, and Stiles licked his lips in a way that seemed somehow agitated and confused at the same time. Derek didn't blame him. Being handed someone's medicine made him feel like a father instead of a friend… bodyguard. They were terrible friends.

"However, if you have any aloe, you can apply that as often as you'd like, but it needs to be pure aloe. After the first day, the aloe will work as well as the ointment or it could even be more effective. But try it lightly first. Some people have skin irritation when using aloe."

"Good to know," Stiles quipped and stood up. "So is that it?"

"Yes. Nothing much else we can do for you, Mr. Stilinski." The doctor held out a hand to shake before remembering it was Stiles' dominant hand that was injured. He quickly switched hands and Stiles smiled as he shook it. "You're good to go. Since you probably won't be in town much longer, if you have any complications with your burn, find a doctor wherever you are. If they have any questions, they can call me." And then he handed Derek his business card.

After that, Stiles was given a shot that was more pain killer than anything else, and the nurse applied an antibiotic ointment to his burn and then wrapped his hand in new bandages. Five minutes later and Derek was stopped at a red light, his resting bitch face aimed at the traffic signal that kept him from getting back to his sister.

"So," Stiles said and cleared his throat. "You sounded pretty upset on the phone earlier."

"Oh?"

Groaning, Stiles shifted to aim his body at Derek's. "Oh come on, can we just stop this already? I'm- I'm trying here, alright? And you're shutting down every conversation I try to start. It's super unhelpful."

"I hate hospitals and yes I was upset on the phone," Derek growled out and then tried to remind himself that none of this was Stiles' fault.

Except maybe it was… a little… only Stiles didn't know it was. The light turned green.

"Okay. So on the phone…," Stiles paused, nibbled his lip, and shrugged. "How did your uncle get burned?"

Good topic shift. "He was working a job about eight years ago. Not for a singer. This was for a sort of up-and-coming musicians showcase. On the final day of competition, it rained really hard and the stage and everything was drenched. Someone tried to suggest they delay the proceedings until the area could be checked for hazards."

Derek paused and clenched the steering wheel. He didn't like talking about that day, even if he was being vague about his own involvement. But right now he preferred this topic over his breakup.

"But my uncle disagreed, and so did the director of the event. So things continued. But some of the electrical wiring had been damaged in the storm, and mid-show a cable snapped and electrocuted the stage. My uncle was a little too close to the fire that flared up."

He did his best to keep his voice neutral, emotionless, as he spoke, but Stiles was far too quiet afterward, so he was pretty sure he failed.

"Oh my God," he murmured after a tense minute. "What about the performers?"

"There was only one on the stage when it happened. Paige. She was displaying a solo talent… with a cello," Derek explained, and he almost missed getting into the next turn lane.

"And?" Stiles prompted.

"And she died." His fingers relaxed on the wheel. He'd only told his mother about this before. Most people didn't even know Derek had been present for the event, so no one bothered him about it. But Scott knew.

"Sorry," Stiles said and Derek glanced curiously over at him. Before Derek could ask what he was apologizing for, Stiles continued. "Sounds like you knew her. Plus you had to take care of your uncle afterward…. Plus now you're taking care of me. Listen, I'm totally cool with being dropped like a bag of moldy cheese if treating a burn reminds you of that job too much."

"Stiles, shut up," Derek said, but he felt his lips twitch.

"Alright. Sharing times is over. I follow. Sharing's not caring. Zipping my lip. Shutting up right now. Like right now." And the singer mimed zipping his mouth and throwing the key like a major league baseball pitcher. Derek couldn't help the way he almost laughed, a snigger escaping despite himself, and he didn't miss the way Stiles smiled at him afterward.

* * *

><p>Preview Chapter 9:<p>

Derek is on "Stiles patch-up" Duty, which leads to some very close conversations. When he starts to wonder if Stiles could be his true soul mate, Derek finds himself increasingly curious about the singer's hidden numbers. During their talks, Derek finds a lot of his tensions ease, but maybe the same isn't true for Stiles?


End file.
